I originally saw you in a live stream for your book launch, which I thought was excellent in large part because of your insight that kids were retreating to online community because they weren’t allowed unsupervised or hang out space anywhere else. So like teens do, they were solving their problems with the tools available to them.

At the time my eldest was 9/10 and we had just returned to the US after living in the UK. I had a hunch you were right. Now five years later, I know it. We, parents and elders, both blame teens for the time they spend on screens while generally failing to teach them how to use the devices wisely. Now, that is in part because we are still figuring out wise use ourselves. There is a problem here that needs solutions. But part of that solution will involve recognizing that filling our kids’ days with adult organized and supervised activities and otherwise expecting them to have their nose in intellectual work provided by adults or sitting safe in our homes like potted plants will do nothing to fix the problems we see and may even be the primary cause of said problems, which we are scapegoating by blaming technology.

Oh, and the verbalizing idea for young kids is gold.