By Amy Dalness, WELLBEING Department Leader
During their WELLBEING classes, Bosque School students are used to exploring a range of topics that personally affect their lives—the importance of good nutrition and sleep, how to de-stress and unwind, how to navigate conflict and build healthier relationships, and much more. In 8th-grade Life Skills, the students recently started a unit that focuses on teaching them to become good digital citizens and interact with others online in a healthier way. A big topic in this unit is social media use, including how much use is too much and being aware of what intentions could be behind the content they are seeing.
There are many resources available to guide parents and guardians in cultivating healthy social media use in their children, but one recommendation requires us adults to take a look at our own behaviors. The American Psychological Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics both point to adults’ social media use and digital habits as being highly influential to the children and teens around them. By observing our own behaviors and identifying healthier habits for ourselves, we can directly impact the young people we are working so hard to raise into healthy adults. If we role model good social media and screen habits, our students will take notice and are more likely to follow our guidance.
So, I issue a challenge to all of us caring adults. For the next several weeks, let's pay attention to our screen use. How often do we pick up our phones to check Instagram, X, or our favorite news app? When we have a moment of downtime, do we allow ourselves to be bored, or are we rechecking our email to make sure we haven’t missed anything in the last 10 minutes? (I admit that checking email constantly is one habit I have a hard time breaking.) Let’s practice mindfulness around how we use our phones and social media, which will help improve our own wellbeing while role-modeling healthy behaviors for our children. It’s just one way we can practice WELLBEING every day.