A few years ago, the American Academy of Pediatrics announced that it had made updates to its screen time recommendations for children. The organization formally recognized that digital media is now a normal, everyday, and even valuable part of life for parents and children. The changes allowed for longer screen time limits and proposed suggestions on how to manage media usage for children. For many modern parents—myself included—this signified an important shift in which methods are considered acceptable for teaching and entertaining our children, especially during these times when distance learning is the new normal.
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Secondly, when my first child started kindergarten, I learned that technology has truly become an integral part of academic instruction, even at the elementary level. In our district, each kindergartner and first grader gets an iPad for daily use, and many assessments are conducted on the devices. Since my son had so little technology time up to that point, he basically had to learn how to use the iPad efficiently before he really hit his stride academically. I totally wasn't expecting that challenge, and I realized it was time to loosen up a bit and start taking advantage of the incredible academic resources that are available on digital platforms. These are some of our favorites.