While we are all – very appropriately –  now freaked out that Grok is undressing people online, it’s a good time to remind ourselves that this is just one more way that quickly advancing technology means that we need to get savvy on how to look after ourselves.

Here are 10 ways to balance tech with your family’s health:

1. No phones/screens in the bedrooms. That’s for kids and adults, both safety (who has access to your kids behind a closed door?  Keep internet enable devices in common areas of the home.) and sleep quality (everyone).

2. 20/20/20 rule for Eye health.   Prolonged screen time is hard on our eyes  Look after it by taking a break of at least 20 seconds, every 20 minutes and to look at something at least 20 feet away.  Bonus:  Try the  1/2/10 rule keep tablets/phones at least “1” foot from your child’s face, laptops at “2” feet, and roughly “10” feet for TVs. Use the setting to make the font twice as big as your child can comfortably read to reduce eye strain.

3. Limit screen time. Under age of 5, most experts recommend up to one hour a day – that includes all screens, including TV. As children get older, be aware of what they aren’t doing when they are on screens.  Remember that play is work for a child, and really important for their development.  If the extra  screen time means less reading, creating, drawing, building, playing, playing with friends. Most importantly:  Your child – and teen! – needs to be physically active 60 minutes a day. Adults need 2.5 hours per week.  Many families don’t get the recommended amount of physical activity.

4. Food and Screens:  Screens impact our relationship with food.  Eating while streaming means chance for talking and engaging in family home and for some people, it can lead to eating excess food while distracted.   Also be aware of more screen time means more exposure to commercial influences. The ClickBite study shed serious light on how many times an hour a child or teen sees targeted ads or influencer promote unhealthy food choices.

5. Talk to your child and teen about cyberbullying and online behaviour. It has a real impact on mental health. This should be an ongoing discussion as they age.

6. Talk to children and teens about the digital world is not real, and how the fake perfection and aspirational content can lower mood. Actually, remind yourself of this too!

7. Make sure your children and teens have a better place to learn about their bodies than TikTok. From skin care to diet trends to sexual health, help your children and teens develop critical thinking skills and find TRUSTED resources.  Again – this is really important advice for adults either as we are importing an ever increasing among of truly harmful health misinformation from the US.

8. Help break the cycle of unsafe sex and gender based violence – have difficult conversations about manosphere content and porn, which often depicts violent and unsafe sexual practices.

9. Parental controls.  Get up to speed at CyberSafeKids. for free and trusted resources and support, including online parent education sessions.

 10. Monkey see, monkey do.  It’s all great to make rules for the kids but have a serious whole-family discussion about screen time.  Involve them in creating whole family approaches to screen time limits.   If you are on your phone all the time, your child is learning that this is something more important than what they are doing.

One last thought:  Close your eyes. Go back to the early 90’s. You’ve just had the most embarassing day at school ever.  You make it home, close the front door and hide away that night.   Overnight, you had no fear that new nicknames were being texted among the class bullies, new memes about you created, your story published on social media.  The next day was a new day.  Our children are losing that safe space.   We’ve previously done a deeper dive into Children and Smart Phones “Loss of the Safe Space”