Ready for a deep dive?

Throughout the writing of The Opt-Out Family book, I tapped over 250 sources both in and out of Silicon Valley to answer a singular question: How can we as parents, and as a society, give kids what technology can’t?

The answer, collectively, was this:

O.P.T. O.U.T.

Offer built-in alternatives to technology.
Protect childhood innocence and free play.
Teach the benefits of being different.

Offset consumption with creation.
Unite varied and diverse social circles.
Trust (and build trust with) your children.

Below is an in-depth look at key research, ideas, and strategies to serve as a roadmap for the above pillars. Happy exploring!

Offer built-in alternatives to technology.

• Review NPR’s podcast “Should Schools Ban Smartphones?” including evidence and practical steps, as well as researcher Jonathan Haidt, PhD’s “Case for Phone-Free Schools” and vast social tech research. Then, sign the petition and present it to your local school district alongside this e-mail script.

• Consider Wait Until 8th’s list of smartphone alternatives for children.

• Visit Unplug Collaborative for 200+ ideas to replace screen time at home.

• Review our comprehensive list of technology swaps to make in your household.

• Learn 75+ life skills to teach young children.

• Look through a list of device-free summer camp options for your children.

Protect childhood innocence and free play.

• Listen as Dr. Peter Gray talks about the consequences of free play deficit in today’s children.

• Watch award-winning documentary Childhood 2.0.

• Visit Children and Screens to review the latest research re: digital media’s influence on children.

• Sign up for parent advocacy group Protect Young Eyes’ newsletter to stay abreast on the latest digital trends, harms, and dangers online.

Teach the importance of being different.

• View the short film, Watch This Before Starting Social Media.

• Join Screen Time Action Network and visit their extensive resource library for social tech issues.

• Listen as MIT professor Cal Newport convinces his students - and the world - to quit social media.

•  As a family, read aloud age-appropriate memoirs of people who moved against the grain of society: Caddie Woodlawn, A Little Princess, My Side of the Mountain, Peace Pilgrim, Walden. 

• Consider watching The Social Dilemma to learn how social media manipulates on a grand scale.

Offset consumption with creation.

• Learn the groundbreaking science behind how independent activities and healthy risks are curing childhood anxieties in today’s kids.

• Review the immense benefits of immersion and connection to nature via Children and Nature Network.

• Join 1000 Hours Outside, a global outdoor challenge to match screen time with green time.

• Sketch with renowned artists leading free, 30-minute art lessons inspired by works of art from the National Gallery’s collection.

• Make cardboard creations with materials from the recycling bin after getting inspired in Makedo’s creative hub.

Unite varied and diverse social circles.

• Review the US Surgeon General suggestion to wait until at least 16 years old before using social media.

• Widen your social circle and explore the benefits of mixed-age play.

• Consider launching a Let Grow Play Club in your community.

• Utilize our email scripts to build and engage your own Opt Out social circle or Luddite Club.

Trust (and build trust with) your children.

• Watch “How every child can thrive by 5,” a TED Talk by 7-year-old Molly Wright.

• Listen to a New York Times special report as kids confront their parents about sharing too much about them online.

• Visit Free Range Kids for strategies and advice on trusting your child to explore his/her world.

• Reject the prominent idea that children should be tracked, monitored, or surveilled via apps.

• Decline opportunities for facial recognition/AI software at camps, clubs, or extracurriculars.