Parent resources

You can download a Family Tech Agreement Template in Word or Pages format below. This template is just a starting point; you will need to adjust the wording to fit your family's house rules about technology. These agreements also work best when children have some input in the guidelines for technology use.

Family Tech Agreement Template (Microsoft Word)
Family Tech Agreement Template (Apple Pages)
Family Tech Agreement Template (Google Doc template)

If you would like some ideas for additional components of a Tech Agreement, you can download the Additional Items documents below.
Family Tech Agreement additional items (Microsoft Word)
Family Tech Agreement additional items (Apple Pages) 
Family Tech Agreement additional items (Google Doc template) 

Common Sense Media: Independent media and digital citizenship advice for parents and kids. Common Sense Media CEO Jim Steyer spoke at ASL in the autumn of 2009. Apple Families: resources from Apple about how to set parental controls, enable restrictions, and share items on Apple devices. When to give your child a smartphone: from Harvard Graduate School of Education's Usable Knowledge (2018). Research Studies Common Sense Media: Teens and Pornography, 2023 Common Sense Media: Media Use by Tweens and Teens, 2021 Pew Research Center: Teens, Social Media & Technology 2022 Offline Reading Media Moms & Digital Dads: A fact not fear approach to parenting in the digital age by Yalda T. Uhls The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age by Catherine Steiner-Adair  Grown up Digital by Don Tapscott

The Anxious Generation wants to save teens. But the bestseller’s anti-tech logic is skewed from The Guardian (April 27, 2024)

Screen Time for Kids Is Fine! Unless It's Not from Wired (March 29, 2024)

Why you should stop texting your kids at school from the Associated Press (March 10, 2024)

Meta is rolling out new parental control tools for Instagram and Messenger from Tech Crunch (June 27, 2023)

'Anti-dopamine parenting' can curb a kid's craving for screens or sweets from NPR (June 17, 2023)

The tricky timing of a child's first smartphone from Salon (June 7, 2023)

The A.I. Chatbots Have Arrived. Time to Talk to Your Kids from the New York Times (March 22, 2023)

Parents and screen time: are you a ‘contract maker’ or an ‘access denier’ with your child? from The Conversation (August 23, 2022)

Snapchat Introduces Its First Parental Controls from the New York Times (August 9, 2022)

How to talk to your kids about screens from The Spinoff (October 19, 2021) The author, Peter Warwick-Mahoney, worked in the Development Office at ASL from 2004-2012.

How parents and educators can support healthy teen use of social media from KQED (October 13, 2021)

Little to No Link Between Adolescents’ Mental Health Problems and Digital Technology Use from the Association for Psychological Science (June 28, 2021)

Flawed data led to findings of a connection between time spent on devices and mental health problems from The Conversation (June 23, 2021)

How to have a better relationship with your tech from MIT Technology Review (February 6, 2021)

Screen time and kids: Parents need to worry less about hours logged from CNN (July 29, 2020)

I Was a Screen–Time Expert. Then the Coronavirus Happened from the New York Times (July 27, 2020)

During Lockdown, Google Maps Gives My Son a Way Out from Wired (May 19, 2020)

The 6 Cardinal Rules of Internet Safety All Parents Should Follow from Fatherly - in conjunction with Google (February 12, 2020)

How to Raise Media-Savvy Kids in the Digital Age from Wired (January 27, 2020)

I Monitor My Teens' Electronics, and You Should Too from Wired (January 27, 2020)

Panicking About Your Kids’ Phones? New Research Says Don’t from the New York Times (January 17, 2020)

We asked teenagers what adults are missing about technology. This was the best response from MIT Technology Review (December 21, 2019)

Here’s What’s Happening in the American Teenage Bedroom from the New York Times (November 29. 2019)

The Scientific Debate Over Teens, Screens And Mental Health from NPR (August 27, 2019)

At Your Wits' End With A Screen-Obsessed Kid? Read This from NPR (June 30, 2019)

Social media effect 'tiny' in teenagers, large study finds from the BBC (May 7, 2019)

Screen time has little effect on teenagers' wellbeing, says study from The Guardian (April 5, 2019)

I’m 14, and I quit social media after discovering what was posted about me from Fast Company (March 18, 2019)

Want Your Kids to Have a Healthy Relationship to Tech? Make This 1 Tiny Change to Your Routine from Inc (March 6, 2019)

Parents can police screen time – but good luck telling your children that from The Guardian (January 30, 2019)

Studies Shoot Down Tech’s Harmful Effects on Kids—So Now What? from Nautilus (January 28, 2019)

The Kids (Who Use Tech) Seem to Be All Right: A rigorous new paper uses a new scientific approach that shows the panic over teen screen time is likely overstated from Scientific American (January 15, 2019)

Don’t fall for the moral panic over children’s screen time from The Guardian (January 7, 2019)

Screen time not intrinsically bad for children, say doctors from The Guardian (January 4, 2019)

Depression in girls linked to higher use of social media from The Guardian (January 4, 2019)

‘The New Childhood’ and How Games, Social Media Are Good for Kids from Variety (January 1, 2019)

How much screen time? Silicon Valley parents are still trying to figure it out from the Washington Post (December 27, 2018)

Screen Time for Kids Might Not Be Such a Bad Thing from Scientific American (December 13, 2018)

Limiting screen time for your kid? It’s harder than it looks from the Associated Press (November 19, 2018)

The sneaky science behind your child’s tech obsession from the Washington Post (November 9, 2018)

Screens or no screens? How to hit the screen-time sweet-spot from the Irish Independent (October 1, 2018)

Instagram and Teens: What Do You Need to Know? from Education Week (September 12, 2018)

The Big Myth About Teenage Anxiety from the New York Times (September 7, 2018)

I Switched On All My Phone’s Settings For A 10-Year-Old And It Was Fantastic from BuzzFeed News (July 19, 2018)

More Screen Time For Teens Linked To ADHD Symptoms from NPR (July 17, 2018)

Researchers find that filters don’t prevent porn from TechCrunch (July 13, 2018)

I Used Apple’s New Controls to Limit a Teenager’s iPhone Time (and It Worked!) from the New York Times (July 11, 2018)

Do you really know what your kid’s doing on that device? from the Associated Press (June 26, 2018)

'Fortnite' Addiction Isn't the Problem. It's the Symptom from Inverse (June 15, 2018)

Kids Whose Parents Limit Screen Time Do Worse in College, New Study Shows from Inc (June 14, 2018)

How to Talk to Teens About Dealing with Online Predators from Common Sense Media (April 18, 2018)

Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking from Harvard Business Review (March 20, 2018)

Finding those Lightbulb Moments: How to help children manage their technology use (October 25, 2023)

• View the parent survey results
• View the student survey results

 

Navigating technology and literacy today (May 3, 2023)

• View the slides for the introduction from Colin Bridgewater and Payson Bullard
• View the slides for the session on apps used by students from Colin Bridgewater

 

Navigating today's tech challenges (February 1, 2022)

• Slides for Keeping Children Safe Online with Belinda Nicholson
  • The Keeping Children Safe Online ARUP Zoom session from May 24, 2021 mentioned by Belinda is located in the Zoom webinar recordings archive section. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the 2020-21 option.
• Slides for an Overview of Social Media Applications with Colin Bridgewater

Patrick Green, an educational technology author and consultant, visited ASL September 17-18, 2024 and led sessions for parents, students, and teachers. Resources connected to his parent sessions are below. Patrick then visited several other international schools in October. While he was at the American School in Japan (ASIJ), he was a guest on the ASIJ Audio podcast for a session called "Navigating Digital Wellness for Parents: A Conversation with Patrick Green." You can listen to that podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or via the web.

The Truth About Screentime

• A video of his presentation on September 17 is here.
• Patrick's Favorite Screentime Resources

Social Media, Gaming and Mental Health

• Child Mind Institute
• Book: Moral Combat by by Patrick M. Markey and Christopher J. Ferguson 
• Social Media is a Major Cause of the Mental Illness Epidemic in Teen Girls. Here’s the Evidence by Jon Haidt
• Pew Research on Teens and Social Media 2022

Let’s talk about Sexting and Pornography

• Thorn for Parents - discussion prompts and scripts
• Culture Reframed - parenting courses, scripts and facts on pornography
• Fight the New Drug  - conversation scripts and facts on pornography
• Apple's "Check for Sensitive Photos" parent control setting
• Book: Behind Their Screens, What Teens are Facing and Adults are Missing by Emily Weinstein and Carrie James
• Book: Growing Up in Public by Devorah Heitner
• Dr. Gail Dines EXPLICITLY describes the content of mainstream hardcore pornography at the 10-minute mark of this video. 

Techwise Meeting

Patrick met with members of the Techwise parent group on September 18. He explained that some of the slides in the presentation below were from his presentations to students, so the group could see some of his messages to the students.