Growing Up Social Book Review and Giveaway

In our home we always had rules about screen time, especially computer time. We also highly regulated what our kids could watch on television. Our kids weren’t even allowed to get cell phones until they were teenagers! None of these rules harmed my kids. They grew up to be well-balanced, responsible young adults who know how to create and maintain healthy boundaries in their lives.

Unfortunately, many children growing up today are not learning those same life lessons. A main reason for this is the fact that they lack human interaction because their nose is always buried in a screen. Often, we as adults are just as guilty. We all need to set limits to our screen time to maintain healthy relationships.

I was excited to read Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World, and I’m even more excited to loan my copy to friends of mine who desperately need to read this book and make some drastic changes in their current family/screen dynamic.

About Growing Up Social

Children today are no longer playing hide-and-seek outside or curling up with a good book—instead they’ve been introduced to a world of constant digital entertainment through television, video games, and mobile devices. And while technology has the potential to add value to our lives and families, it can also erode a sense of togetherness and hinder a child’s emotional and social development.

In Growing Up Social, Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane will empower you with the necessary tools to make positive changes…starting today. Through stories, wit, and wisdom, you’ll discover how to take back your home from an over dependence on screens. Plus, you’ll learn to teach the five A+ skills that every healthy child needs to master: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention.

• Equip your child to be relationally rich in a digital world
• Replace mindless screen time with meaningful family time
• Establish simple boundaries that make a huge difference
• Discover what’s working for families that have become screen savvy
• Learn healthy ways to occupy your child while you get things done

Now is the time to equip your child to live with screen time, not for screen time. No phone, tablet, or gaming device can teach your child how to have healthy relationships—only you can.

Mom Maven’s Thoughts

Every parent with a child of any age living in their house needs to read this book! Yes, I mean you! Go ahead and order it from Amazon right now. Growing Up Social: Raising Relational Kids in a Screen-Driven World is the best book I have read on digital parenting. It cites not just the relational reasons for limiting screen time but also the developmental and educational reasons.

I love that this book focus on what they call the A+ Skills of Affection, Appreciation, Anger Management, Apology and Attention. All of these skills are severely diminished in people with excessive screen time and part of this book focuses on how to raise relational kids who have mastered these important skills.

The book also has a quiz at then end titled “Does Your Child Have Too Much Screen Time?” Chances are, the results of this very short quiz will open your eyes to an issue in your home.

This book is not all doom and gloom and shaming parents who up to this point have not be consistent in limiting screen time. It is full of suggestions, ideas and reasons of why and how you can handle this area of parenting better. This book is great to read alone, with your spouse or in a book club setting. There are discussion questions for each chapter to help you dig deeper into the topic.

The Growing Up Social Giveaway

One winner will receive their own copy of Growing Up Social. The winner will be chosen by Rafflecopter and verified. The winner will be notified via email and they will have 48 hours to claim their prize. This giveaway ends at 12:00am on 11-21-14.

a Rafflecopter giveaway