Award-winning psychologist, author, and Nurture’s Digital Parenting Expert. I help families build healthy relationships with technology through science-backed guidance. My work focuses on screen time, gaming, and raising kids in a connected world.
Over the past decade, researchers have discovered that playing video games can actually boost IQ. Consider the large 2022 study that followed nearly 10,000 U.S. children aged 9–10 and measured their cognitive abilities two years later. After controlling for genetics and socioeconomic factors, researchers found that kids...
Friendship doesn’t look the same as it did a generation ago. For today’s kids, social connection flows fluidly between offline and online spaces. A friend might be someone they sit next to at school. A friend might be someone they build with in Minecraft. Or that friend might...
"Emotional parenting" might sound like a new trend, but it’s deeply rooted in what developmental science has long supported: children thrive when they feel seen, heard, and guided. While the phrase itself isn’t a formal parenting style, the skills it describes, such as validation, co-regulation, and...
Social skills, a category of foundational life skills, refers to the various abilities we use to communicate and interact with others effectively. There is a wide range of skills that are considered “social skills”, such as: * Active listening * Respect * Using and understanding body language * Empathy * Emotional intelligence. While we might...
Summer can feel like a season of endless possibility. It can also be filled with too many moments of, “I’m bored!” When used with intention, screen time activities can be a great way to support kids in the summer, to help them curb their summer boredom, build skills, and...
A growth mindset is the idea that you can grow and improve through dedication, hard work, and learning. It’s having the mindset to recognize every challenge as a learning opportunity instead of a roadblock. Resilience is how you build and live out a growth mindset. It’s the practice...
Parents often carry guilt about screen time, particularly when it is used as a temporary distraction tool. But as digital parents, screens are not just a single-use tool, or a “special occasion” treat, or a “threat” to the global health and well-being of our children. If you want to be...
Empathy is a skill that grows through practice. Kids develop this skill by interacting with many different kinds of people, such as those from diverse backgrounds, with varied perspectives, and in various roles. One way to encounter new people, perspectives, and roles is through books, movies, and TV shows, as...
Critical thinking for kids means learning to ask questions, make decisions, and solve problems — not just taking things at face value, but wondering why and how as they explore the world around them. Games are valuable tools to foster the development of critical thinking because they combine curiosity, creativity, and...