With the Covid-19 pandemic creating an unexpected need for online school, tech has been forever integrated into our children’s everyday curriculum. Teachers recognize that kids benefit from tech tools, and schools now offer individual devices for kids as young as elementary age. We’ve become reliant on screen devices at home too. Smart assistants, like devices that support Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, get us fast answers to questions in seconds. But is it helpful to outsource the brainwork we should be doing ourselves? What if you’re a kid who hasn’t yet mastered independent reasoning? Does relying on a screen device impair learning rather than help us develop it? Are teachers aware of how much kids are outsourcing learning to their devices? If you worry that your child is using tech too much, our Screen Safety Toolkit offers a resource guide so you can tighten up screen time supervision and management.
What are smart assistants?
Smart assistants are tech devices, like phones, portable screens, watches, and speakers that use software to perform verbally requested tasks.[1] Among the most popular are Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.
As of 2021, about 47% of smartphone users in the United States are Siri-equipped iPhone users.[2] In 2020, close to 70% of smart speaker users in the United States used Alexa-equipped Amazon Echos.[3] The prevalence of these two smart assistants has created an encyclopedia of knowledge accessible just at the sound of our voices. In fact, Amazon promotes using Alexa for that very purpose.
Last year, Amazon ran an ad that showed a father asking Alexa what year Pompeii was destroyed. Once he receives his answer from Alexa, he shares it with his daughter who is clearly doing homework at the dining table. She then turns to ask him for the name of the volcano. He responds by turning back to the Alexa device. Although this ad intends to demonstrate a fun interaction between father and daughter, it also demonstrates how smart devices are being used to cheat on assignments and get easy answers.
Are kids using smart devices to cheat?
The modern generation of students is smart, and they know how to use the technological resources they are given. But they also know how to use them to cheat and get away with it.
A college student I interviewed recalls a run-in with a fellow classmate who had Siri turned on during a test in high school. “We were in the middle of a test in my AP European history class, and suddenly the iPhone of the girl sitting next to me begins speaking. You can hear Siri say, ‘The War of 1812 was…’ before she abruptly turned it off. The teacher immediately turned to her and said, ‘Make sure all phones are turned off please.’ The student turned bright red, so I think she definitely learned her lesson.”
This instance of cheating occurred in 2017. Since then, opportunities for cheating with smart devices are more common than ever. A recent high school graduate recalls taking tests during Covid-19. “The teachers would make us all have our cameras on, but they wouldn’t require us to be unmuted since it would be a distraction. Since they couldn’t hear us, anytime I would get stuck I would just ask the Alexa sitting in my room. Sometimes my friends and I would even Facetime each other and use my Alexa together whenever we felt confused. I honestly would never study for tests because I didn’t see a point when I could just get the information from Google so easily.”
For a student who is struggling, smart devices provide the perfect assistance for quick and easy answers to questions while simultaneously being practically untraceable. Other forms of cheating leave behind indicators or evidence, but smart assistants don’t.
It is a given that cheating is bad, but you may not know of the many downsides to cheating that go beyond academia. A recent study by a Harvard-Duke research team found that cheaters tended to engage in “self-deception,” meaning they would view their high performance as a sign of high intelligence, which may not actually be true. They see a high score, and even though they cheated, they believed that they are smart enough to have earned that score.[4] Another study found that when our kids cheat, they deprive themselves of the happiness that comes from independent accomplishment.[5] Smart devices are helpful tools, but when their assistance turns into dependence, kids begin to create a world where there actually at a disadvantage.
Take away or manage smart devices during class or homework time using resources from our Screen Safety Toolkit.
Advocate for your kids and communicate your preferences about tech integration with teachers and school administrators.
Offer valuable information and support for your learning community by suggesting a screen safety webinar from Dr. Bennett, our Screen Safety Expert, at your school and church.
Set up tech-free learning challenges for the whole family like a family game or trivia night.
Encourage creativity, curiosity, confidence, and a love of learning by offering a variety of fun educational materials and outings.
Optimize health tech integration for the whole family with the parents-only and family coaching videos from our Screen Safety Essentials Course.
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Katherine Carroll for researching kids cheating using smart assistant devices and co-authoring this article.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Now that I’m an “older” working mom, I love to share offline and online organization hacks and efficiency grabs that have saved me through the years. These organizational techniques were the difference between frazzled and peaceful at our house. With the overtasked lives we lead, most of us are guilty of brain fades and frantic searches while yelling and scolding overwhelmed kids. Even if you set up only one or two of these ideas, it may be the difference between fun family mornings versus a school day launched with tears and resentment.
Unclutter study spaces by setting up customized, distraction-free workspaces in niches and corners for each kid.
Kids in my practice often complain that the kitchen table is too distracting to get homework done quickly and neatly. The psychological research agrees. Studies reveal that fractured attention leads to irritability, wasted time, and poor grades. To optimize learning, set up a quiet corner office for each child. All it takes is a willingness and clever organization ideas and fresh accessories. Check out my GKIS Connected Family Online Course for a detailed blueprint for creating award-winning maker spaces with awesome Pinterest DIY ideas. A customized works station is a compelling magnet to get your kids creating in 3-dimensional space as a complement to screen learning. Ergonomic, body-healthy setups in the place of slouching on beds and couches avoid repetitive stress injuries to the neck, back, wrists, and hands.
Avoid missed soccer practices and study deadlines by setting up a digital family calendar.
Family schedules are chaos! Streamline communication and scheduling by color-coding child activities and setting up Family Share on Apple’s Family Calendar, Google’s Calendar, or Microsoft’s Outlook. Each member can share calendared activities and set up automatic reminders. Shared organization at a glance!
Just as you throw out old clothes your kids have grown out of, it’s also important to declutter digital spaces.
Schedule a fresh-start fall family meeting where everybody gathers with their mobile screen devices to trash apps and games they have grown out of.
Revisit (or grab) your free GKIS Connected Family Screen Agreement at GetKidsInternetSafe.com. This will help you set sensible rules like a digital curfew and create screen-free zones – including bedrooms and bathrooms.
Finally, teach cybersecurity measures from my Cybersecurity Red Flags Supplement. New this fall, you and your family members can tweak bad habits so don’t fall victim to bad actors online.
Cleanse social media profiles with an eye toward future reputation.
If your tween or teen is on social media already, you know the time-suck risks during school time. Help them sort out the necessary from the unnecessary by helping them avoid the bio-hack elements designed to capture their attention.
Consider limiting teens to only one or two social media apps to decrease wasted time due to mindless browsing and compulsive checking.
Insist that apps with visual notifications be on the second swipe screen on smartphones. That way they won’t get distracted by little red notifications and, instead, can batch their check-in times as research suggests is best.
And finally, delete old posted photos and unnecessary personal information from social media history. Sharing real-time with friends on a private profile is fun, but do you really want somebody lurking through your past photo-by-photo? Point out that other parents, relatives, teachers, coaches, future employers, and even college app administrators may be forming impressions based on your digital footprint. So instead of having an online resume populated by off-color jokes and sexualized photos, create a flattering stream of artistic works, philanthropic activities, sports activities, and fun friend and family time. A progressive, balanced, healthy life looks beautiful online – and may help you get a college placement or dream job instead of hinder it!
Reboot your Screen Safety Toolkit.
Each developmental stage offers unique online safety challenges. For example, little kids are best accommodated in a walled digital garden like YouTube Kids, and older kids need a little more digital space to explore and create. To parent well in the digital age, you need specially-selected free and third-party software tools to help you filter and block inappropriate content, set time-limits, monitor online activity use, remotely pause or offer rewards, and even locate and track the driving activities of your teen. If you get overwhelmed or need help figuring it all out, check out my GKIS Screen Safety Toolkit for tips, product recommendations, links to ISP and social media app safety guides, and free digital learning tools for best academic performance.
There you have it! Five quick and easy parenting hacks that will launch the school year with fun and success. Just as I recommend shoes live by the front door so you are not always searching, digital folders and organization tools will keep you dialed-in in your virtual life. Most importantly, set a peaceful intention with a six-second exhale for positivity and fun each morning before you enter the family’s living space. Parents must actively define the heart of the home. If we start the morning with a smile and warmth, our kids emotionally synch and return the joy. Soak in every chaotic and blissful moment!
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Also, if you are a local Southern Californian and need a little TLC to get started on your screen safety/fun parenting plan, join me for a morning of pampering and friendship.
Parents know that screen use carries risk, whether it’s sleep deprivation, texting while driving, online sexuality and aggression, or addiction. But what can we do about it? Pandora’s box has been opened. Yes, there are powerful parenting strategies that should be happening to limit risk, but who wants to deal with toxic teen fallout? Tweens and teens can put up a fight and workaround most rules anyway. And what if you have been monitoring on the sly and see something alarming, then what? If they find out you’ve been spying, it will damage an already difficult relationship. What can parents do to kick in and do a better job without starting World War III?
I work with teens every day in practice and have two at home. I agree they can be pretty scary. But I also know that without us, they’re capable of getting into real danger. There are sensible techniques you can use to implement real change without damaging your relationship. Believe it or not, teens even welcome limits sometimes, as long as they’re justified and introduced with a sincere offer for respectful negotiation. If that wasn’t the case, I’d be getting fired by session three most of the time by my teen clients. Instead, I often have to push them to graduate from therapy. Like us, they love fun connection and will accept adult influence more than you think.
Here are some parenting hacks for managing screen use even with the most independent teens:
DON’T AMBUSH
Sprinkle in your intent and justification over time rather than in one aggressive attack. Intervention doesn’t have to happen all at once (even though you may be anxious to get it over with). Introduce your ideas over time to give teens a chance to digest the information. Start with a discussion, then a meeting, then the implementation in doable steps. It’s unlikely you’ll ever get their full buy-in, but gradual tweaks will be accepted far better than a hostile takeover. For example, rather than take away Instagram due to a transgression, talk to them with warmth and acceptance acknowledging that ALL teens make mistakes online. No big deal. Just fix this one and maybe pare back to Dunbar’s number on their friends list. This is the number of friends our brains seem to have slots for, 150. By paring back, they reduce risk and still get to keep connecting with friends. All-or-nothing interventions can drive a wedge, but gradual and reasonable tweaks provide learning opportunity and you get cred for being reasonable.
PREPARE FOR PUSH-BACK
When I work with families, I often start with coping skills long before I suggest parenting strategies. Listening, assertiveness, negotiation, and relaxation skills are key. It also helps if you are prepared. These push-back possibilities are offered so you won’t be surprised when they arise and will stay calm and strategic and avoid getting pulled in and manipulated. If it gets too heated, walk away (eyes off the behavior you don’t want) and return to the issue another time (eyes on the behavior you want). Most important, don’t let them see you sweat. Maintain your credibility with calm authority.
Typical teen push-backs:
Act like they don’t care with plans to sneak later
Justify, lie, or make excuses
“I didn’t do it”
“Everybody does it”
“My teacher says I have to”
“You don’t know what it’s like now [I know everything about everything]””
Deflect and distract
By triggering you with real-time bad behavior, you may forget to follow through (“Look squirrel!”). I call this “throwing a fireball into the room.” While the parent is running around putting out fires, the issue at hand gets lost and the kid wins. Fireballs can be:
Eye-rolling
Talking back or cussing
Pulling out a list of grievances with absolutes (“You never let me” “This always happens”)
Tantrum
Name calling (“You suck”)
Self-deprecation (“I’m a terrible kid”)
Emotional extortion: Threaten to hurt you or themselves
Physically aggress (throwing, slamming, hitting)
Defy you and do it anyway
LISTEN AND VALIDATE
Although maddening, it’s healthy for teens to push back and manipulate. You want your kids to test things out on you, their safe person. Don’t take oppositionality personally. Manipulative kids are simply smart, strategic kids. Your job isn’t to squash their spirits, it’s to manage it and coach them to success.
For kids to engage in a discussion, you’ll need to listen as much as you talk. Lectures turn them off immediately. No engagement means you’ve lost any hope of influence. Once your child has responded and you’ve confirmed that you understand their position (whether you disagree with it or not, their position is legitimate), firmly state your intent to establish sensible rules. Remember that screen use is their lifeline to learning and socialization. Compulsive screen use happens, because it has real meaning and benefit. If you tell them to “turn it off,” they get anxious. Anxious kids are the most defiant, because they will endure almost anything to avoid the feelings from anxious rebound. Making a non-negotiable announcement will make for hard-going later and interfere with the opportunity for teens to take accountability for positive change. There’s big payoff for giving in a little rather than demanding full obedience. Modeling, mentorship, and teamwork are keys to success.
NEGOTIATE THE RULES
How does one negotiate without losing authority? Let’s take the example of trying to get your child off their phone during homework time, called multitasking. First, keep in mind this is not a black and white issue. Sometimes multitasking contributes to learning, other times it interferes.
Multitasking is beneficial when generating ideas, acculturating oneself to vocabulary and ideas around a particular topic, identifying experts and networking with community, enriching understanding using multimodal formats (reading, listening, viewing video), and when browsing for entertainment. Multitasking activities that have performance costs include screen activities that interrupt demanding cognitive learning tasks like reading, homework, or studying. Perhaps pulling back on bad habits rather than eradicating them entirely is a good start for now. For best success, outline goals, commit to honest learning objectives, and download time management and tracking apps. Let them try out their ideas, then swing around later to discuss outcome. Tweak, repeat.
There you have it, a plan! Remember to set an expectation for success and prepare for follow-through. If you capitulate to teen freak outs, it will be far harder next time because you’ve taught them you’ll cave in the face of tantrums. If you follow through, they’ll eventually respect your authority. Staying firm, consistent, and emotionally neutral is also important. You’re empowered and so are they. Small consequences (one night when devices are docked early) are usually just as impactful as big ones (taking their phone for a week), and you are less likely to cave because it’s doable. Don’t forget to remind them that you will lighten up as they get close to graduating. High school seniors need more independence to build resilience and prep them for success in college.
Teen life is complicated! And just like adult life, it is difficult to stay in healthy balance. My GKIS teen screen media series breaks the balance into three primary areas: learning and academics, friends and fun, and rest, rejuvenation, and self-care. Maybe you hoped that as your teens gained more independence, your parenting responsibilities would decline? Think again! Parenting a teen is perhaps the most emotionally taxing phase thus far. Not only must you learn to compromise and negotiate, but teaching, modeling, and supporting complex skill building is what separates the successful teen from the unsuccessful.
Adolescents live busy lives. Along with big changes to their bodies and brains, this generation is more overtasked than ever before with academics becoming increasingly important for launch. Teens must increasingly transition from middle school to high school, class to class, activity to activity, screen to screen. In my practice, I have seen overtasking increasingly take a concerning toll on teen mental health. Outsourcing tasks to screen media helps with day-to-day activities, like using social media to maintain friendships, calendars to schedule, texting and email to communicate, the Internet to seek new information, and word processing to store and produce classroom assignments. However, they still need our help with overall organization and self care. Parents can support their success by helping teens with big picture skills by setting up, teaching, and supporting organization, project management, and study tools.
Valuable organization, learning, and education tools for any family with teens include:
A FAMILY COMMAND CENTER. In our house this revolves around the kitchen computer. Not only is this where we calendar activities that automatically synch on all of our phones, but we have a basket that serves as an inbox. This helps stage regular planning sessions and organize papers that need signed and deadlines that must be met. Scheduling and post-it notes can be completed by keyboard, others with old fashioned pen and paper. Calendar and to-do list apps include iCal, Google Calendar, Outlook, and Cozi.
SPECIFIED DOCKING STATIONS. This sounds obvious, but organization takes preplanning. Assign a filing-not-piling area for important items like screen media, backpacks, keys, and shoes. If kids get in the habit of storing items in one space, it avoids a lot of frantic searching and last-minute scolding. At night, I suggest a docking station in the parent’s bedroom for screen media devices. Otherwise, you will be unable to check for compliance and sneaking WILL happen.
STOCKPILE COLOR-CODED SCHOOL SUPPLIES. It doesn’t take long for folders to rip and paper to run low. By getting your teen’s school supplies organized from the beginning and staging backpack checks, you can help them stay organized and avoid missed assignments. Setting up folders on-screen media is also helpful for digital organization and efficiency. With the right support and materials, teens will become increasingly independent with their academics.
ONLINE CLOUD STORAGE TOOLS. Apps like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Picasa are an extremely helpful way to get organized and stay organized. I personally store all of my university materials on Dropbox so I can effortlessly pull them up for use at the beginning of class. No more heavy book bags, lost flash drives, and aching shoulders. Cloud backup services are particularly important for security. My friends at Cloudwards provided me with this comparison chart to help with smart selection.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS. Apps like Evernote and Trelloare excellent systems to track projects and prioritize tasks. You can even share projects so group partners and parents can see progress and help keep track of deadlines.
ONLINE EDUCATIONAL TOOLS. There are so many online educational tools being developed every day I can’t possibly offer the best and the greatest. However, longtime favorites include the Skype so kids can form study groups and share homework information, Khan Academy or Learning Birdfor online lessons and homework help, iTunes University for a library of free educational resources, StudyBlue for user-created flashcards and study guides, XMind or Coggle for mind mapping and project collaboration, and Cold Turkey to block apps, websites, or even the entire Internet until your work is done. Your teen’s school will likely suggest a variety of tools at the beginning of the year to optimize parent communication and support. Set it up and use it!
Most of us learn organization and efficiency through the school of hard knocks. However, tanking your grades in high school during this learning period can have serious consequences when it comes to college opportunity. Instead of abandoning your child to digital overwhelm and long-term academic consequence, I suggest you start off the school year with a setup day for online tools and encouraging instruction. By teaching winning learning, organization, and study strategies, your teens will not only feel loved and supported with a strong parent-child alliance, but they will also start a trajectory of learning success that sets the stage for excellence. That’s a feel-good parenting job that will pay off for a lifetime.
Are you fighting the homework wars? Wondering if screens during homework are helping or hurting grades? We can’t take screens away during homework time anymore. So much of it is online! Kids insist that tech helps them learn better. But does it? Today’s GKIS article covers who tech can help with learning and how it can interfere.
How We Learn
We have to have a good memory to earn good grades. To learn, we must encode, or anchor, that information into brain memory storage. This type of learning happens as we engage with the material over and over. Memories also encode while we sleep. Changing short-term memories into long-term memories happens through biochemical and electrical processes called consolidation.
Different types of memories store in different parts of the brain. Memorizing factual information (required to perform well on tests) primarily involves the part of the brain called the temporal cortex. Intentionally learning facts is called explicit memory.
Memorizing how to do something, like tie your shoes, is called procedural learning. It is stored in the areas of the brain that involve motor control. This kind of learning is called implicit memory.
Emotional memories (like those that occur in traumatic situations) are stored in multiple brain areas including our emotional center, the amygdala.
Research suggests that kids studying while watching TV may encode that information as procedural rather than factual data. Encoding in the wrong brain region makes fact retrieval at test time more difficult. How and where you study also makes a difference.
How to Facilitate Learning
To learn well, we must start with great brain health, get motivated, set up a good workstation, and follow best learning practices. Are you practicing these learning techniques?
Good self-care, brain health, and cognitive fitness are the foundations of learning engagement (like sleep, nutrition, exercise, and a positive mood)
A distraction-free study environment
Efforts toward mental engagement: attention and motivation
Putting the learning content in a variety of different formats (listening to a lecture, reading notes, writing notes, re-writing notes, watching videos, engaging in discussion, etc.)
Memorizing material in a variety of study environments
Making unique meaning of the material, such as generalizing and applying the concepts, especially with emotional connections
Repetition and practice
Avoid doing two tasks at once that require the same cognitive resources (don’t multitask)
Uninterrupted brain rest after each study session (mindfulness, meditation, time out in nature)
The Benefits of Screen Time for Learning
Screen devices can be amazing learning aids. Not only do they help us put the material in different formats, but they are fun and convenient to use! Here are some of the ways screen time benefits our learning.
With our screen devices, we have immediate, easy access to massive stores of information.
The biohacks built into our devices make learning fun. We are captured and motivated.
Online quizzes and testing help us immediately assess where we are with our learning.
Learning programs dish out progressively challenging content at a pace that matches our performance.
Screens give us access to others for group discussions and crowdsourcing problems.
Screens offer cool and create learning formats, like project management and brain mapping systems.
Gamifying content helps us learn and have fun!
Best Learning Strategies
1. Learn from the get-go.
Don’t waste a moment of studying. Be an active learner the minute you come into contact with the material. Actively engage with the content while you read the textbook, take notes in class, and watch the videos. Participating in class also helps deep processing of the material!
2. Learn while you format study materials.
Outline the text and rewrite and highlight your notes. Attend to and connect the main concepts. Leave out illustrative details so you have only essential material (fewer pages) to memorize.
3. Set the stage to study.
Block out sufficient study time over several days using a block-scheduling download from the Internet. Prepare yourself and your study space to optimize learning. Make sure you are comfortable and fit (fed, hydrated, rested) with a positive attitude about studying. Find a comfortable, non-distracting study location. Turn off your phone and other notifications and commit to studying only, no social media or Internet surfing.
4. Engage with content, don’t kill and drill.
For a student to learn effectively, they must engage with the content and integrate it into a meaningful framework. Students often make the mistake of mindlessly rehearsing isolated facts, thinking time spent is evidence of learning. Kill and drill is a waste of time and mind-numbingly punishing. Deeply processing information is the best way to learn.
5. Create learning pathways.
Each time we encode a fact into the hippocampal area (memory center) of our brain, we create a learning pathway to that content that can later be traveled for retrieval at test time. Increasing the number of pathways to that encoded fact is the process of effective learning.
In items 2 and 3 of this list, you already paved the initial pathways! The first pathways include when you listened to the lecture, wrote notes, read the textbook, answered the teacher’s questions, and formatted study materials.
To pave additional pathways to test content, find creative ways to further engage with and elaborate on the material while you study. The more emotionally and cognitively meaningful the material is for you, the easier it will be to learn. For example, use the Internet to view the study material in a variety of vivid formats, such as illustrative maps, diagrams, pictures, speeches, or videos. Link the information to emotionally meaningful memories or associated topics. Study from a variety of locations. Form a study group and talk with others about the content.
6. Rehearse the information and practice retrieving it and applying it just like you would at test time.
If the test is multiple-choice, make up questions that would lead to memorized facts. If the test is an essay, practice outlining and writing essays on that material.
7. Study small chunks of material at a time over several days, eventually linking the chunks together.
Don’t cram at the last minute. Your brain needs time to deeply process newly learned material. It will even process when you’re not actively studying, even in your sleep! That means it’s best to learn and rehearse chunks of material over several days. By test time, the chunks will come together for easy, A+ retrieval.
Fostering the love of learning is the best thing we can do with our kids, that means helping them learn better and achieve a healthy balance on- and off-screen. For more learning tips, view my free video, “How to Study Effectively: Metacognition in Action.”
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetYourKidsInternetSafe.
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Katherine Carroll for researching kids cheating using smart assistant devices and co-authoring this article.
