A Guide to Digital Education and the Online Environment
Parenting for the Digital Generation provides a practical handbook for parents, grandparents, teachers, and counselors who want to understand both the opportunities and the threats that exist for the generation of digital natives who are more familiar with a smartphone than they are with a paper book. This book provides straightforward, jargon-free information regarding the online environment and the experience in which children and young adults engage both inside and outside the classroom.
The digital environment creates many challenges, some of which are largely the same as parents faced before the Internet, but others which are entirely new. Many children struggle to connect, and they underperform in the absence of the social and emotional support of a healthy learning environment. Parents must also help their children navigate a complex and occasionally dangerous online world.
This book provides a step-by-step guide for parents seeking to raise happy, mature, creative, and well-adjusted children. The guide provides clear explanations of the keys to navigating as a parent in the online environment while providing practical strategies that do not look for dangers where there are only remote threats.
Book Reviews
At Last! The guidelines parents and teachers having been waiting for. And, it’s all in one organized, straightforward, book. Technology can be such a large, difficult expanse of terms and capabilities that change rapidly. Jon Garon’s book, Parenting for the Digital Generation will give both parents and teachers the information needed to confidently provide support and instruction for any child’s education.– Kimberly Durham, PsyD, Dean of the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice, Nova Southeastern University
An impressive compendium of the latest evidence on how to think about the use of technology with children! Given the fast-moving nature of technology, the book also presents some strong principles to help parents think about how to continue to get the vast benefits from technology while limiting the downsides.– Michael B. Horn, bestselling coauthor of Disrupting Class, Expanded Edition: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, Blended: Using Disruptive Innovation to Improve Schools, and other books on the future of education
As a child psychologist and a mom, I know most parents have concerns about how to parent in this quickly-changing, fast-paced, digital world. This book provides families with a strong knowledge base for understanding the basics of the digital world, offers examples of the benefits of technology, discusses the concerns, and provides an understandable framework for determining how to maintain balance within the family. The easy-to-read charts that describe developmental stages in relation to media use will become a favorite resource page as I continue to support families in their goals of finding the strengths in the digital world that will help foster their children’s development while maintaining age-appropriate and realistic limits. This book is a must read for all parents.– Sandra Sondell, PhD, Psychology Consultation Specialists
Parenting for the Digital Generation should be required reading for every parent, educator, and young adult. This comprehensive manual is one of the best organized guides in print today. Mr. Garon provides concrete instructions and recommendations for parents and anyone who wants to maintain a balanced digital life. The legal and ethical standards provided are timely and relevant as our society continues to be more reliant on all forms of technology.– William J. Kopas, EdD, Head of School, NSU University School