Parent newsletter

Start a newsletter at your school to help bring visibility to the things that are working already in your own community.

The point of the newsletter is not primarily to keep parents up to date on news and trends related to digital wellness and media harms, although that can be a secondary piece.

We’re not trying to be Common Sense Media or After Babel. (Which is great, though, by the way.)

The newsletter is hyper-local. It features stories from people like the Computers teacher at the school, your friends, the mom you see at carpool, your pastor, etc. People you know.

Example newsletter topics:

• Interview your Computers teacher about how he/she teaches media balance and digital safety
• Interview your pastor and ask what types of conversations parents should be having with their kids now, given increasingly high rates of accidental exposure to online pornography in childhood
• Interview your friend about how and why she uses a phone basket when friends come over to her house (bonus: do a phone basket giveaway!)
• Interview a parent who has tried more than one type of smartphone alternative device. What did they learn?
• Interview a parent who was more permissive with older kids around device/media use but changed his/her approach to adopt stricter rules for younger kids as they reach the same age. What motivated the change in approach? How did they talk to their kids about it?

Along with these interviews, you can also link to some relevant, newsworthy articles or videos, yes. Also be sure to publicize any SCPN-related speakers or events people should know about.

But the purpose of the newsletter is to showcase what is working in your community right now, and what people in your community have learned from experience.

Why should the newsletter have this local focus?

It has to do with changing our perception of what is normal in our community. Kids often tell us, “I’m the only one in my grade without a phone,” when in reality, they may have just noticed a few classmates with phones and assumed that’s the norm. Phones are visible—what’s not visible are the kids without them. The same goes for social media: kids notice who is online, but they can’t see who isn’t. This leads to a skewed sense of what’s typical.

A hyper-local newsletter helps correct those false perceptions by spotlighting real families in your school community who are making thoughtful, pro-social choices—like using phone baskets at playdates or delaying social media.

By making these quiet choices visible, you help shift the culture. People begin to see that they’re not alone.