Screen-free summer for kids: A guide for parents

Pediatrician Dr. Tiffany Munzer has encouraging words for parents hoping to strike a healthy balance with summer screen time for their kids and teens. "There are things that they can do, even though the deck really feels sometimes stacked against them," says Munzer. Munzer, who is also a digital media researcher at the University of Michigan, has no illusions about the challenges parents face over the summer. Fulfilling, screen-free activities are often expensive and require shuttling kids during the workday. Letting children, even teens, stay home for hours on end presents its own dilemmas. Once a digital device is in their hands, it can be difficult — and feel impossible — to get a child to put it down. Yet Munzer, along with the childhood independence advocate Lenore Skenazy, shared practical tips with Mashable for summertime device use that can liberate kids from screens and get them outside playing with friends and peers. Going into summer without a screen time plan, yet still expecting balance, is unlikely to work. Instead, Munzer recommends that parents develop a predictable yet flexible schedule. Ideally, it reflects when parents most need support, like during a meeting or