Best Practices Conversation Cards

This section features conversation starter resources developed in collaboration with the Center for Excellence for Social Media and Youth Mental Health for parents and caregivers of children, including resources specifically developed to be used with younger children (2–10 years old) and tweens and adolescents (10–19 years old). These resources, which are available at the Center for Excellence webpage are designed to help children build safe and healthy relationships with online platforms and media and develop their skills for doing so.

Building Healthy Relationships with Media: Essential Skills for Children 10 and Younger

Children build media habits and preferences from a very young age, so it’s worthwhile to set them up for a healthy relationship with media before they grow into teens and young adults. The following practical strategies are ways to build balance, critical thinking, self-regulation, and safety skills for toddlers through elementary school-aged children.

The following was developed in partnership with the Kids Online Health and Safety Task Force, which is co-led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, in close partnership with the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Funding for the Center of Excellence was made possible by Grant No. SM087180 from SAMHSA of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, SAMHSA/HHS or the U.S. Government.

Make it a Low-Drama Part of the Family Conversation

Do you ever find yourself arguing with your kids about screen time?
You are not alone! Often, families’ discussions about screens feel like a power struggle, full of negotiations and negatives. But they don’t have to be. But they don’t have to be.
Screens are all around us, and help us work, laugh, learn, and escape from stress. Therefore, like you talk about food, sleep, school, or any other part of life, it’s important to find time to talk about media and technology. It can be anything from the latest movie or video game or something you hear about in the news. The key is to be open-minded, listen to our kids, and guide them without shame and blame. Even young kids can learn from conversations about online safety, how to recognize marketing, and being smart about what videos they watch. Children in elementary school may enjoy sharing their emerging opinions about technology.

Ideas for how to do it:

• Be an influencer detective (age 6+): If your child likes videos created by influencers, watch along with them and ask: “Why did they say that? Do you think someone paid them to put that in their video? Are they being real, or showing off? Do you think they get more ‘likes’ or earn more money that way?”
• Family movie night (all ages): Pick a movie or show to watch together. Have conversations about the characters, what happened, and what you agree with and disagree with.

Normalize Having Boundaries

Technology can’t take up every minute of our downtime. We need a good night’s sleep, time to talk to each other, and time to share food and laughs. Think about the family routines your family loves, whether it’s chatting on car rides, family meals, or dancing together, and make time for it. These are the things that we need to ensure tech doesn’t crowd out — for kids or parents.

Ideas for how to do it:

• No-phone zones (all ages): Together with your family, decide on rooms of your home or times of day when you don’t want technology to invade, such as at the dinner table, in the car, or before bedtime.
• Quiet those devices (all ages):Set do not disturb, focus mode, or other settings on devices so that unnecessary notifications don’t come through when you want quiet time.
• Device free meals (all ages): Families who decide there’s “no tech at the table” can focus more on each other, having conversations, and enjoying the food they are eating.

Things you can say:

• Ages 2-3+:
  • Give a warning to help them transition away from screens, and help them come up with ideas for what to do next. “I’m going to set a timer for five more minutes, and then it will be time to do something else. What ideas do you have for what you want to play – maybe cars, playdoh, or stickers?”
  • “Let’s do a challenge where you turn off the iPad/game console/TV by yourself, without me having to remind you. Do you think you can do that?”
  • Help kids plan so that media doesn’t take up all of the day: “What’s your plan for using the iPad today? ” What’s your plan for doing other things too?”
  • “I am going to put my phone away for the night so we can have time together.”
• Ages 5+:
  • “It seems like you’re having a hard time putting your device down, let’s talk about that.”
  • “What makes you want to play that game every day?”

Pick Good Content

• There is so much content out there for kids! It’s your right to be choosy about what your kids watch and learn from. Pick videos, games, and movies with good storytelling and minimal marketing or ads. If you want something educational, go with shows that are proven to help kids learn, like Sesame Street or PBS KIDS. This helps kids understand that their minds can really engage with media — not just zone out.

Ideas for how to do it:

• Look it up (all ages): Common Sense Media rates thousands of movies, shows, apps, games, and books to let you know whether they are worth your child’s attention, are too mature, or contain themes you’d rather not introduce yet.
• Peek in on what they are watching (all ages): Part of monitoring kids’ media use is watching along — even for just a few minutes. If you don’t like what they are watching, talk about it and find alternatives.

Things you can say:

• Ages 2-3+:
  • When you see them watching something new, ask:
    “What do you like about this?
    What happens on this show/game?”
  • “Can you show me your favorite channel?”
  • “I’m not crazy about what that character just did. I thought it was rude. What do you think?”

Teach Non-Screen Ways to Manage Emotions and Boredom

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we all used media a little more to manage stress and boredom. But those habits don’t need to stick around. It’s a really important part of mental health to learn how to manage strong emotions and channel boredom into other activities that make us feel human. Many kids need to unwind and burn off a little steam when they come home from school, but make a time limit around technology so that this doesn’t take up the whole afternoon. Remember, managing emotions and boredom are skills that don’t come easily to all kids, so they need practice and help from caregivers.

Ideas for how to do it/What to say:

• (Age 2+) Talk about emotions: “When you feel these big emotions, it’s okay. Emotions come and go. Let’s stretch our bodies reeeeeaaaaalllly big and take 5 deep slow breaths. When we’re done, let’s see how we feel.”
• (Age 4+) Help build insight into how technology makes us feel. “How does your brain and body feel after playing that game?”
• (All ages) Find alternatives: “Let’s try listening to some calm relaxing music” or “Instead of watching tv to go to bed, we are going to try reading a book. How about you pick out two books for us to read tonight?”
• (All ages) Recognize when your family is all sitting around looking at your own devices. “I’ve noticed that our family has been using our screens to help us calm down. Let’s talk about other ways we could calm down when we are stressed out.”

Build Digital Smarts and Kindness

We all see weird or upsetting stuff online sometimes. Talk about it in a non-judgmental way, so that your child knows it’s not their fault and they can come to you to process it. When they do see something upsetting, empower them to pause, think about it, block it, and report it. Kids should know that kindness and respect is the expectation online, and rudeness or violence is not.

Ideas for how to do it/What to say:

• (Ages 6+):
  • “I saw something rude in my social media feed today, and it made me upset. Does that ever happen to you?”
  • “ Do you ever see other kids being mean online/in your game?
    Why do you think they do that?” 

Teach Safety Skills

When kids are young, we talk to them about street safety, swimming safety, and other rules that come with exploring the world.
Safety rules for the digital world should include:

1. privacy about names, addresses, phone numbers, and passwords,
2. not chatting with strangers (who can sometimes pose as kids),
3. not clicking links or downloading things that can carry viruses, and
4. unsafe websites that can show sexy or violent things. Kids can be impulsive and curious, so it’s important to teach them these rules ahead of time, before they stumble into trouble. Having kid-safe filters and protections on devices or Wi-Fi also helps.

Ideas for how to do it/What to say:

• (Ages 3+):
  • “Just like I teach you how to be safe crossing the street, it’s my job to teach you how to be safe when using your tablet.”
• (Ages 5+):
  • “You wouldn’t post your name and address on a billboard, right? That’s why we don’t share private information on a chat or game that anyone can see.”
  • “Computer viruses can make our laptop/tablet crash and not work. That’s why I help you decide what websites to visit and games to download.”
  • “If people online try to give you things, ask you for pictures or private information, or otherwise are making you feel weird, let me know and I can help you block them.”

“Sharenting:” Thinking Before Your Share

Since the invention of social media, parents have shared billions of photos of their children online — often without kids’ permission.
While these photos can share joy, parents say they also can lead to negative social comparisons about picture-perfect parenting. These photos also contain a lot of data about children’s faces and locations. Experts recommend asking for your kids’ permission before posting photos or stories about them online. This helps teach children about consent and privacy, which may help them be a more responsible social media user as a teen.

Ideas for how to do it/What to say:

• (Ages 5+): If your child doesn’t like what you’ve posted, ask them why. Sometimes children are embarrassed or might want more of a say in what pictures you decide to post.
• (All ages): If you post pictures of your child(ren) on social media, show them. Younger children may not understand who else can see these posts, so you might need to explain it, like “My account is public, so anyone can see this.” or “I only share pictures with my good friends and people like grandma.”
   

Suggested Activities

Conversation Starters for Families of Tweens and Teens

Having conversations with tweens and teens about technology and digital media can be challenging. For busy families, it can feel hard to find the right moment, or to say the right things. This resource provides ideas and examples that you, as parents and guardians, can use to frame conversations with your tweens and teens around common scenarios involving technology, social media, and video games. It is intended for use with tweens and teens who already are engaged with technology and digital media.

Below are questions and prompts that you can use with your child to get their input, make decisions together, and have conversations rather than lectures. It’s normal for parents to feel stressed during these conversations, so it is ok to pause or take some breaths if you need to, and remember not to jump in and try to control things. Having conversations “early and often” is preferable to planning and structuring one long talk. While there is no perfect time to have these discussions the table below gives some ideas for timing to consider and timing to avoid.

Setting initial boundaries around technology and digital media use

“I’d like us to talk about our family’s approach for setting some boundaries around technology and media use. I was thinking that this is something we could work on together as I’d like to include your input in these decisions.”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“Are there times of the day that you think we should not use devices or phones? One example may be during family dinner.”

“Are there times that are important to you for me to be present and not on a device or phone?”

“Digital media is fun and a learning opportunity, but it can also be a lot to handle. You and I are both learning about this together. I want you to know I’m here to help you through any situation that may come up. I’d like to keep an eye on a few things for now, like your sleep and whether you are seeing things or having experiences that stress you out.”

“I’d like for us to talk about your device and internet use regularly; that way we can check in with each other and see how it’s working for you and for us. I’m thinking for now let’s touch base every other month or so, what do you think? When would be a good time to check in?”

“Since a lot of the time when you’re on your phone, you’re doing it by yourself, I’ll be checking in with you about how it’s going. It’s important for you to feel comfortable talking to me in honest ways about this.”

“I’d like to be sure that any discussions we have about rules or guidelines also apply to me and my own tech use. We can use the Family Media Plan tool from the AAP to get some ideas for approaches and guidelines for both/all of us. Let’s take a look and see if it is helpful to us.”

Initial check-ins after setting guidelines and boundaries

“It’s been about a month since we set our guidelines around technology and digital media. I wanted to check in on how things are going.”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“What’s working well?”

“What is not going as well as you hoped?”

“What could I be doing better in role modeling technology use?”

“Let’s take a look at the guidelines we set up in the Family Media Plan, and we can discuss if anything needs to be changed at this point. You can also give me feedback on how I’m doing with these rules.”

Social media specific check-ins

“I know that social media is important to you. I wanted to check in about it; how do you think things are going with your social media use?”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“What are some of the things you’ve enjoyed about having this social media account? What are the downsides? Is there anything you want to change? Why?”

“I don’t know much about this social media platform. Can you show me a little bit about how it works, or what you like to look at on this one?

“I understand that what you follow has a big impact on what you see when you are on that app. How do you decide who or what to follow on your profile? Do you ever think about unfollowing accounts when you don’t like the content they show you? Why or why not?”

“Have you noticed whether you feel drawn to using social media during the day or at night? Anything stand out to you?”

“Have you noticed times when it’s harder to get off social media. Why do you think so? What helps you get off it?”

“What’s something that’s surprised you about using social media so far? Was it good or bad? How about something you expected to experience — has it been what you thought it would be? Why?”

“Have you experienced any unexpected or unpleasant situations since you’ve gotten your account? What was that like for you?”

“It sounds like you made a great decision with how to handle that. Did anything surprise you about what happened? Would you do something similar if this happens again? Or, would you do something different?”

Checking in on unwanted contact

“One aspect of social media use that is really important is protecting our privacy. Have you looked at the privacy settings on all of your accounts? How are things going with those settings?”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“Have people tried to contact you who you didn’t know?”

“Do you know how to block someone online if they contact you or make you feel uncomfortable? Can we look together and figure out how?”

“It is unfortunately common that people online can pretend to be people they are not. This happens online and on social media or gaming platforms. Sometimes adults pretend to be teens to try to get something from them, like a sexy picture. I want you to know if anything like that ever happened to you, I would want to support you. I would be there to help you figure out a solution. I want you to be really careful with your privacy and who you share information with, but most importantly I want you to know we are here to support you no matter how bad a situation may be.”

“I am guessing that you probably know about this, but there are some people who use online platforms to bully or harass others. Has anything like that ever happened to you? How did you handle it? How can I support you?”

Checking in on unwanted content

“As you probably know, your social media platforms track your search and viewing patterns. They try to get to know you, and an algorithm (a set of rules that rank content across the platform) decides what to put in your feed. How is the algorithm working for you at this point? Is there content you don’t want to see? Can we look at ways to reset your algorithm?”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“It’s really normal to see some content that is creepy, upsetting, or that you don’t want to see online, or via social media or gaming. Have you had any of these experiences that you are comfortable sharing? In thinking back on these situations, are there ways that you handled them that you feel good about? Things you would do differently? How can I support you?”

Struggles with meeting family expectations around digital media use

“I feel like it’s a good time for us to check in on how our family media expectations are going. How are we all doing with using our devices? I’ve noticed a few times that I’ve needed to remind you about our agreement to not have devices at the dinner table so we can spend time together (or other area that is a struggle). What ideas do you have to make that rule work better for you? What would work about that plan and what wouldn’t?”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“What is that like for you?”

“How am I doing with role-modeling that boundary?”

“How do you feel like you’re doing role-modeling for your siblings?”

“How can we support you following that rule?”

“What should our next steps be?”

Tween/teen gaming too much

“Let’s talk about gaming. I’d like to share a few things I’ve noticed about your gaming behaviors, and then hear from you. My goal is for us to get on the same page about this.”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“You seem to get upset when I try to get you to stop playing video games and [come to dinner/go to bed/do homework/do chores/etc]. What’s going on in those moments for you?”

“What sort of things make it hard to stop gaming?” — explore wanting to be on at the same time as friends, designs of games, wanting to de-stress, avoidance of homework or family chores.

“It sometimes feels like gaming is a distraction from some things stressing you out at school. That makes sense. I also sometimes find after a hard day at work that scrolling on my phone can feel good in the moment/distract me from work I have to do/etc. While gaming sometimes is one way to help, as your parent, I want to help you figure out other ways you can deal with stress or relax. Let’s see if, together, we can come up with any ideas.”

Media and technology interfering with sleep

“Sleep is really important for everyone. I know you aren’t able to show up to [x] activity/have the energy to do all the things you want to do/etc. when you don’t get enough sleep. Let’s talk about some ideas for how to help you get better sleep.”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“I’ve heard you say you’re feeling really tired this week. How is it going with putting your phone away at [x] time?”

“Let’s come up with a plan that would help you feel more rested.”

“What about keeping your phone away from your bed since it can interfere with sleeping? What other ideas do you have to calm down before you go to sleep?”

“I know that you use a calming app to go to sleep at night, so your phone is near where you sleep. Can we look at some settings to make sure your phone doesn’t send notifications that wake you up?”

“What makes your phone so easy to use at night? What makes it hard to put down?”

Overheard conversation about social media

“When I was driving you and your friends today, I heard you talk about something you saw on social media last week. I’m interested in what’s going on for you, so I’d like to hear a little more from you about what happened.”

Possible Follow-Up Prompts

“How did you feel about that?”

“What are ways that this happening on social media helped or hurt this situation compared to if it happened offline?”

“Who can you talk to when things like that happen?”

“Are there ways I could have supported you better during that situation?”

Prompts to encourage reflection around relationships with media

“Do you feel like people are being real on social media? How can you tell if they are being authentic?”

“When you left your phone at home by accident the other day, how did that feel? Why?

“When you’re on [platform], how do you know who is nice and who’s not? How do you decide who to block, or who is a grown up or a teen?”

“What does it feel like when you’ve lost track of time in your phone, versus [other favorite activities like a book, doing art work, playing basketball]?”

“What do you think [platform] knows about you? How do you feel about that?”

“Have you ever given attention to how you feel immediately after using your favorite social media app for a while? If you aren’t sure, try to check in next time right after — do you feel good or bad? Why do you think so?”

Reflecting on other peoples’ tech use

“I know that you’ve seen classmates spend time on their phones, what do you think is good about it? What is annoying? Why?”

“When you’re hanging out with friends, and they are all on their phones and not paying attention to each other, how does that feel?”

“When you’re on [platform], how do you know who is nice and who’s not? How do you decide who to block, or who is a grown up or a teen?”

“Have you noticed any of your friends change as a result of spending a lot of time on their phones? How do they change?

“What’s the cringiest thing you have seen other kids do online? How did you feel about it?”

“What’s the most hilarious thing you’ve seen other kids do online?”

“When you’re trying to talk to someone, and they’re looking at their phone, how does that feel?”

Parents talking about their own media use

“I’m feeling overwhelmed with all the technology in our day. Can we think about ways to put it down and spend quality time together?”

“I sometimes have a hard time not checking my phone or feeling the need to respond to texts or emails. I’m working on how to be better about my own boundaries. Let’s help each other find a good balance.”

“What do you think of my phone use habits? What could I do better?”