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) 

ASL Tech Tips: a Facebook page where we post warnings about avoiding online scams and advice about staying safe online. 

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. Common Sense Media: Teens and Social Media Common Sense Media: Privacy and Internet Safety 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. Research Studies Common Sense Media: Social Media, Social Life: Teens Reveal Their Experiences (2018) Pew Research Center: Teens, Social Media & Technology 2018

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)

Worry less about children's screen use, parents told from the BBC (January 4, 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)

Fortnite scams on the rise as police warn children are being increasingly ripped off via computer games from The Telegraph (December 22, 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)

How Your Smartphone Can Make You Healthy and Happy from Psychology Today (August 5, 2018)

The Summer of Pale: How I lost my children to Fortnite from the Washington Post (July 26, 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)

What to ask when your child wants to use social media from CNN (July 16, 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)

Why it’s a mistake to ban social media — and what to do instead from the Washington Post (June 12, 2018)

The Ups and Downs of Social Media from Harvard Graduate School of Education (May 16, 2018)

Instagram, Snapchat, Fortnite: The distractions are endless. Here’s how to help kids cope from the Washington Post (May 14, 2018)

How Smartphones and Social Media Can Steal Childhood from Bloomberg (May 4, 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)

Children are using social media after midnight every day, report finds amid warnings over cyber bullying from The Telegraph (February 26, 2018)

Are smart-phones really destroying the adolescent brain? from Scientific American (February 2018) Note: This link is via the Mellon Library's subscription to the EBSCO database. Login information for EBSCO is available on the Mellon Library database webpage.

Should my friend block her 12-year-old son’s access to pornography? from The Guardian (January 27, 2018)

How much is ‘too much time’ on social media? from the BBC (January 19, 2018)

What teens wish their parents knew about social media from the Washington Post (January 9, 2018)

Children’s screen-time guidelines too restrictive, according to new research from Oxford University (December 14, 2017)

How to Keep Your Kids Safe Online from Wired (December 5, 2017)

Staying safe online at 'big school' from the BBC (September 18, 2017) Note: Secondary school in the UK is ages 11-16

The parent's guide to Sarahah from CNN (August 23, 2017)

What Social Media and the Selfie Generation Did to My Teenage Daughter from USA Today (August 11, 2017)

Yes, Smartphones are Destroying a Generation, But Not of Kids from JSTOR (August 8, 2017)

Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? from The Atlantic (August 6, 2017 for the September issue)

The Secret Social Media Lives of Teenagers from The New York Times (June 7, 2017)

Teens Unlikely to Be Harmed by Moderate Digital Screen Use from Psychological Science (January 13, 2017)

How girls use social media to build up, break down self-image from CNN (January 12, 2017)

Why you should stop obsessing about your kids’ screen time from the Washington Post (October 26, 2016)

Why calling screentime 'digital heroin' is digital garbage from The Verge (August 30, 2016)

Teens Who Say No to Social Media from the Wall Street Journal (August 25, 2016)

What’s the Right Age for a Child to Get a Smartphone? from the New York Times (July 20, 2016)

How I Learned to Love Snapchat from the New York Times (May 18, 2016)

Got FOMO? Practical Tips for Easing Kids' Social Media Anxiety from Common Sense Media (March 15, 2016)

An anti-social experiment from the BBC (March 8, 2016)

Don’t Post About Me on Social Media, Children Say from the New York Times (March 8, 2016)

How to Deal with Scary News About Social Media from Common Sense Media (February 12, 2016)

Kids and Screens: What Can We Do? from PBS Parents (January 7, 2016)

Parents Monitoring Teenagers Online, and Mostly, Getting It Right from the New York Times (January 7, 2016)

The surprising reason to have a cell phone contract with your kid from the Washington Post (December 26, 2015)

Why Your Kids Love Snapchat, and Why You Should Let Them from the New York Times (November 5, 2015)

The American Academy Of Pediatrics Just Changed Their Guidelines On Kids And Screen Time from Forbes(September 30, 2015) 

• 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

Middle School Parent Technology Session (October 23, 2018)

• Keynote Presentation (5.5 MB .pdf format)
  (right-click or ctrl-click this link to download this file rather than view it in the browser)

Introduction to the Grade 7 Laptop Program for Grade 6 Parents (May 2, 2018) 

• Keynote Presentation (1.9 MB .pdf format)
  (right-click or ctrl-click this link to download this file rather than view it in the browser)

Middle School Parent Social Media Sessions (March 2, 2016)

• Keynote Presentation (5 MB .pdf format)
  (right-click or ctrl-click this link to download this file rather than view it in the browser)
• Video of the session (49 minutes)

Middle School Parent Social Media Session - Part II (March 16, 2016)

• Keynote Presentation (1 MB .pdf format)
  (right-click or ctrl-click this link to download this file rather than view it in the browser)