Parenting in the Age of Attention Snatchers

A Step-by-Step Guide to Balancing Your Child's Use of Technology

By: Lucy Jo Palladino

Narrated by: Abby Craden

Are your kids unable to step away from the screens? Here is a practical, step-by-step guide that gives parents the tools to teach children, from toddlers to teens, how to gain control of their technology use.

As children spend more of their time on tablets and smartphones, using apps specially engineered to capture their attention, parents are concerned about the effects of so much technology use - and they feel powerless to intervene. They want their kids to be competent and competitive in their use of technology, but they also want to prevent the attention problems that can develop from overuse. Lucy Jo Palladino shows that the key is to help kids build awareness and control over their own attention. In this guide she gives parents the tools to do exactly that in seven straightforward, evidence-based steps.

Parents will learn the best practices to guide children to understand and control their attention - and to recognize and resist when their attention is being "snatched". This approach can be modified for kids of all ages. Parents will also learn the critical difference between voluntary and involuntary attention, new findings about brain development, and what puts children at risk for attention disorders.

©2015 Lucy Jo Palladino, PhD (P)2015 Audible, Inc.

Timely, relevant, clear, accessible

I'm a fan of Dr. Palladino's work, which has always been smart, compassionate, and understandable. Now, as the grandfather of a toddler in a world very different from my parenting days, I find myself urgently wanting to know how to help this little one develop to be fabulously successful 20-30 years from now, but so worried about the "attention snatching" flickers of products and ads designed to glue us to the screens, not to mention gluing the young, who have no experience at resisting anything. What to do??

This book explains how and why the answer varies as the years go by. I found myself thinking "Wow," "mm-hm," "I can see that" on each chapter's info on development of the brain and personality. It made clear that we're up against a formidable and unprecedented challenge, and that there are understandable actions we can take.

Most poignant to me is the "marshmallow test," which correlates with many success measures later in life. I soooo want to help this child develop the self-management to have a successful life even long after I'm gone. To do that, we must teach well now.