6. Summer Phone RAPS
Updated: Mar 9, 2020
This resource accompanies Podcast 6: Summer Phone RAPS.
For the northern hemisphere, school's out and summer's in session. That means more downtime for kids, and that often leads to one thing: screen time.
In this week's podcast, Episode 6: Summer Phone RAPS, I share a four-part strategy for helping teens avoid the physical and emotional downsides of summer cellphone use.
The RAPS strategy stands for four actions for caregivers:
Relationships — Discover your teens' love language and speak it to them.
Awareness — Create an open dialogue about cellphone use.
Protection — Set up guardrails to make it not so hard.
Sustaining — Keep this process alive by modeling it yourself and repeating it.
In the following video, I'll show you how I implemented the third action, "Protection," by adjusting the settings on my teenagers' cellphones as they headed off to summer camp last week. If you have favorite strategies, scroll to the bottom of this blog page; we'd love to hear your ideas!
Tuesday Share Video: How to set Screen Time settings for your kids for iPhone and Android phones
My post this week has a twist — a very specific all to action: Will you take the Summer Phone Challenge for Parents? I'll be your accountability partner. Your mission? Take one action this week to improve your Relationship with your child, increase their Awareness, and Protect them. Agree to Sustain this cycle throughout the summer. Listen to this week's Episode 6: Summer Phone RAPS podcast for more details about each of these steps.
If you're up for the Challenge, enter your name and email on the form below. I'll be your accountability partner by checking in with you at the end of the summer to see how it went. If you kept your commitment, I'll post your name in a shout out in a special blog at the end of the summer.
Fill out the form below to commit to the Summer Phone Challenge for Parents. Let's start a movement!
Click here to view the form in a new window.
Imagine if every caregiver committed to helping their kids use their phones in a pro-social, positive way this summer. The rising generation needs our help. Sign up for the Summer Phone Challenge and let's make the summer of 2019 a season they won't forget.
Recommended reading:
Shawni Pothier, "What I learned," 71toes blog
Rachel Macy Stafford, "Tether Yourself: The Enlightening Talk Parents Aren't Having Can Keep Teens from a Damaging Drift," handsfreemama blog
Thank you Dragon Moms for inspiring this week's post.