Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on April 7, 2011

Bravo, David Pogue. Your story about your youngster’s interaction with the vacuum cleaner is fascinating.

Fascination is infectious.

So, as a child psychiatrist, I am fascinated by how fascinated you seem with your son’s fascination with the tech devices around him. I wonder, has he inherited your fascination with gadgets? Surely, he senses how he is fascinating you. Wow.

This reverberating joy, curiosity, and fascination of a human relationship carried over the broadest broadband ever that bridges father and son is exactly what our brains are about and what makes us human (and IMHO way more fascinating than robots).

And I do wonder how his life will be shaped by such machines and how he might be helped to become self-aware of this process so that he would understand and control it.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on December 18, 2011

Attention is that busy traffic cop pivoting and whistle-blowing in the midst of the streams of information spamming into our minds. These days, the overworked cop is slaving overtime and burning out. Too many of us — especially kids — are overwhelmed by too much information.

Experts and teachers alike are increasingly worried that the chaotic tsunami of information pouring through iPads, iPhones, iTouches, computers, TVs, androids, and other devices into our children’s minds may be overtaxing and damaging brain development, especially how kids learn to pay attention. Many believe we are just seeing the tip of an iceberg.

College professors are noticing that except for the brightest, most students these days have less ability to consistently focus their attention to attain their potential. In addition, the empathy and engagement with others that come with attentive listening and full presence is degraded by electronic distractions. And that goes for parents interacting with babies, too. I fear that such insidious damage, starting in early childhood, is irreversible and will cost us much in lost human potential.

Just to set the record straight: I am a doctor, parent, and pretty decent technophile. In fact, my latest invention is the world’s first curated browser system for kids. I love technology and believe it has great power to do good when fitted thoughtfully and in a balanced way to human needs. I advocate its proper, balanced, and age-appropriate use with children. I also believe in the awesome human brain and that it needs proper development. (And BTW, I don’t expect children themselves nor those adults already seduced by the technology to agree with my POV.)

Attention has long been recognized as an essential executive function that either by effort of will or automatically directs other mind/brain functions, like prioritizing inputs from our senses, turning on or off other processing of information and memory, and monitoring and orchestrating our behaviors. It is essential for accomplishing excellence in most human endeavors to focus intensely and consistently. Attention filters myriads of possible competing distractions, both external or internal, yet is flexible enough to instantaneously focus intensely on threat situations.

Developing disciplined attention skills and repelling distractions are life-long challenges. We are learning more and more about the brain mechanisms involved, and know that they are both genetically and environmentally determined starting with infancy. We know that our attention networks are mostly governed from the area just behind our foreheads and that they fluctuate dynamically normally with fatigue, hunger, and emotional states and extremes can be aspects of many psychiatric or neurocognitive conditions.

Parents: We know that our children cannot manage their attentional skills on their own in the face of massive assaults from over-abundant information and seductive entertainment. Yet too many children are left to do just that when, in fact, they can do no better than create healthy diets as they are bombarded with junk food distractions.

Please realize that although they do look focused while surfing, TV watching, or gaming, kids are not necessarily practicing and developing the attention skills they need because interacting with a digital device may not call for active attentional discipline nor perseverance as reading, imaginative and inventive playing, deeper conversations, spiritual connections, imagining, or creating. Nor are they efficient learners as multitaskers.

I strongly believe that it is time that parents become educated, empowered, and given the tools to provide their children with the right balance of benefits from media to assure sound development, especially of attention skills.

So parents — heads up. Pay attention to your child’s paying attention. Is it attention span or attention spam that your child is learning?

• Make the act of paying attention a distinctive behavior to notice, monitor, discuss, learn, and teach.
• Use parental controls on digital devices to limit time and access.
• Choose apps and online content carefully — do not buy on impulse. Less is more.
• Children vary in their auditory and visual attention among each other and over time. A young child’s attention span in minutes is roughly twice his age in years.
• Limit over-stimulation by restricting the number of choices and blocking distractions online to accustom children to sharply focus attention and enjoy opportunities for the pleasure accompanying true mastery and learning.
• As skills improve gradually with age and practice, increase the challenges of more focusing time and discipline to resist potential distractions.
• Reinforce with specific praise and rewards persistence and discipline of paying attention.
• Teach self awareness of media consumption — its duration and benefits/ disadvantages.
• Teach recognition of information overload, potential distractions, and attentional drifting and strategies of stopping, taking a break, etc.
• Play games to teach visual and auditory attention skills like taking turns closing eyes and asking “What color was that car?” or “What ad did you see that you avoided?” or “What did that radio announcer just say?”

An important bit of cautionary advice: Respect a child’s efforts as the best he can offer and adjust your expectations accordingly, unless you have overwhelming credible evidence to the contrary verified by an expert!

Dr. S is the inventor of the ZillyDilly iPad app system (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/zillydilly-for-ipad/id492673037 ) that puts his philosophy into practice as a convenient tool, the world’s first curated browser for kids and media manager for parents. www.MyDigitalFamily.org presents Dr. Eitan Schwarz’s passion about aligning the wonders of technology with the needs of kids and families. Dr. S practices child and family psychiatry in Skokie, Illinois and is the author of the comprehensive Kids, Parents & Technology: A Guide for Young Families. Currently on the faculty of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Dr. Schwarz is a pioneer researcher in the use of digital media in therapy with children.

(c) copyright 2011 Eitan Schwarz

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on April 24, 2014

Cell phones “have become indispensable tools in teen communication patterns. Text messaging explodes as teens embrace it as the centerpiece of their communication strategies with friends,” declares a current Pew Research Center study.

According to the Pew study, 1/3 of kids ages 12 to 17 send up to 3000 texts a month, and according to the recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 1/5 of this age group spend up to 132 hours of their week exposed to media. Both studies show that parental limits have little effect on how kids use the technology that continues to explode into their lives.

“These studies offer a fascinating look into the complicated ever-evolving interactions between youngsters, parents, and technology. Parents are still mostly reacting by setting limits, yet children remain essentially on their own.”

“The answer is not limits alone. Parents also need to get more involved and stay involved in positive and comprehensive ways with their media-soaked kids rather than merely imposing limits,” states child psychiatrist Dr. Eitan D. Schwarz, author of “Kids, Parents, and Technology: An Instruction Guide for Young Families.”

“Technology provides wonderful opportunities, but parents need guidance to systematically shape its best use in kids’ lives. I urge parents to embrace technology and make its balanced use part of family life from the early years, so that by the time kids become teenagers they will have the right perspective on it,” according to Dr. Schwarz.

Dr. Schwarz advises parents that using texting devices should be part of an overall family approach to media in the home:

• Take Charge – Have confidence and take charge. You can manage this important area of your kids’ lives. Many parents too readily take a back seat and let kids take the lead.

• The cell phone is a powerful appliance that must have positive benefits and limits to belong in children’s hands. Especially for younger pre-teens and teens, put a limit on the number of texting calls, block the Internet, and check the child’s phone regularly to verify who she is talking with and what she is saying.

• Create Healthy Media Rules – Tailor healthy media diets into daily menus for each child to provide development opportunities. For example, regularly require enough online time on apps and online that enhance good values and education enrichment. Apply rules to your own media use – be fully present with your kids, and do not text while parenting.

• Technology is healthy – From infancy onwards, teach kids to appreciate technology as a healthy and routine part of family life. Starting young, children will learn that using technology is collaborative and social — and not an isolating solitary activity. Always join preschoolers or younger kids using the tech toys.

• Include the Whole Family – Create a new environment around media to promote mutuality, fun, respect, and development for the entire family. It is large enough for kids and parents to interact around it.

• Make the Smartphone a Positive Learning Tool – Just as you already shop for healthy food, harvest the positive opportunities offered by its apps and online. For example, for every age group there are wonderful opportunities for learning.

• Create Healthy Media Plans – Tailor healthy media into daily menus for each child to provide development opportunities. For example, regularly require enough online time on apps and online that enhance good values and education enrichment.

• Apply Rules to your Own Media Use – be fully present with your kids, and do not text while parenting. Parents should be fully present with your children and avoid texting and cell phone use. Parents themselves may be damaging children when they are not fully present because they are online, on the cell phone, or texting. Not only are they rude or setting bad examples, but their distractions interrupt the vital bond necessary for healthy wiring of young children’s brains.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on May 20, 2013

A wet diaper detector to alarm mom or dad is soon coming to Twitter!

So odd, at first.

Then funny. “Can’t seem to remember to change your baby’s diapers? That’s what social media is for.” LOL. Great piece, Mr. Cooper.

But is it? Now for the not-so-funny part. (I usually hate to be a party-pooper or rain on someone’s parade.)

OK. Taking some of the guesswork out of caring for Baby seems like a great idea without a downside. Who needs anxious uncertainty and guesswork in parenting? The clever idea is so obvious and simple, it seems elegant: A cute device placed on diaper to sense humidity and twit mom on her phone that it is time to change Baby. Change Baby immediately and Baby avoids a rash and becomes comfortable at once. And parent is assured of doing the best for the baby. Nothing seems better: At first glance, a clear win-win.

Maybe — we don’t know. Consumer technology moves faster than we can research. It may make no difference at all, either way. Or let’s wonder, what can be some harm? Well, it really is just a version of the old “pad and bell” devices for enuresis of older kids, and their use is controversial.

My general POV: Let’s not tamper with infants unless we know what we are doing. So, I believe it important to raise these questions for parents and experts:

Is there some benefit to a parent not knowing, except from Baby’s own signal? Well, for starters, the parent can eventually learn to respond to different cries and builds confidence she knows her baby, binding their intimacy tighter, and increasing the parent’s sense of competence. Or Baby learns to signal distress and that the signal works, developing rudiments of a basic sense of competence in self-expression and trust. Or is there bonding value to mutual tension relief, a shared joy that comes repeatedly from solving an annoying problem together that varies in its annoyance and evokes a range of intensities of reactions in baby and parent?

And do we want to take out some of the intangibles that accrue when one person alerts the other and the other responds? Practicing the “social synapse”? The humanity, empathy, uncertainty, adventure, mystery, awe, discovery, challenge of growing a new life. Normal anxiety about Baby’s comfort. Baby knowing own sensation of warmth or cold wetness and other learning from being wet.

Our cave-dwelling ancestors probably did not have diapers or changed them, so biologically the cycle of wetting, waiting, alerting, etc. may not be crucial. But IMHO the interaction probably does enrich parenting and infancy and provides neurodevelopmentally rich and significant opportunities for human interaction and learning. During infancy are emerging attachment and frustration tolerance circuits in the brain that may be the underpinnings of brain networks for trust, rapport, confidence, and realistic expectations in baby.

So, maybe rather than responding right away, mother can wait a while after the alarm. The compromise seems reasonable, but it provides less intense experiences and would eliminate direct communication. Also, some parents could use this device initially and then learn the specific cry that accompanies being wet.

Telemonitoring bodily functions is a great medical tool. There may be specific instances for its parenting use, for instance for a severe rash or a situation where parent and infant do not communicate directly. So then there is the senses of smell and touch. That’s part of the adventure and intimacy for both parent and Baby.

So I do not recommend routine use of this device. Other questions arise: Would you want it in your own underwear? Do you want to reshape older kids’ – siblings’ – definition of privacy?

More generally, the inevitable introduction of this “convenience” is happening in a new space where kids’ development and technology intersect. The impact on our relationships, society, and public policy and privacy will emerge, no doubt, as opportunities to market in the crib will be explored by startups and commerce not interested in child development. Here’s another piece of evidence that we are getting closer to the time of Crib Robots.

Even more generally, some other easy uses of linking private body function sensors (that might be legitimate medically) with social media would be distant real time communication of sexual arousal (male and female, menses, blood levels of drugs and alcohol, gastric contents and other GI functions – stomach and rectal fullness, ovulation, hormones, bladder fullness and leakage, etc. etc. And then, once this enters into the massive cyberinfo stream, what about who and how this info is used.

Brazillian parents soon will be the first to market test this type of quandary – but only if they realize they are making it a parenting decision, and may pay dearly for what seems like the latest great convenience brought to us by technology.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on April 9, 2014

Apple’s recent elephantine entry into the textbook world is another evolutionary step in technology’s reach into our lives. Let’s hope that like Apple’s other innovations, it aligns technology to the well-being of children and families.

Apple’s iBook 2 is the new elephant in the room for textbook publishing.

Many textbooks are already digitized at a basic level. There are general pluses to digital textbooks, including the saving of paper, interactive engageability, customizeabiliy to individual students and those with special gifts or needs, and the orthopedic relief to youngsters who now often schlepp 20 lb book bags.

But as a child-psychiatrist and technophile, I see vast potential benefits to a sensible coordinated system of digital textbooks. There are two overriding advantages to systematically and carefully integrating textbooks into the richness of the digital universe.

First, a broader collaboration of stakeholders: Textbooks, as do books in general, traditionally have created civilized communities of their readers across time and space. Now, on a day-to-day level, real time collaboration and sharing among librarians, teachers, students, parents, therapists, and primary sources could enlarge and enrich learning communities well-beyond the school walls, and do so not only through text, but also by audio and video. The modern classroom teacher, who personally knows the student and his or her learning and social experience, is the natural leader of such a student-centered community and must be given needed training, resources and support.

Secondly, the collaborative tradition could only be amplified by deep and broad well-managed accessibility to other resources through hyperlinking, also individualized, carefully edited, and filtered. Educational videogames can become integrated teaching tools, such as those of Houston’s Archimage’s Playnormous. Additionally, hyperlinked sources should include older texts, for example as digitized by Google ‘s visionary Book Library Project . Additionally, new worthwhile material related to the iBook 2 project must be well-annotated and organized and accessible to future generations, rather than disappear into the vast noise of cyberspace.

BTW, concerns about the distractions of other iPad content are not trivial. The device is engaging and magical. Teachers, parents, and software developers must bring technical solutions to maximize the benefits of media consumption while minimizing their power to distract (for example, Chicago’s MyDigitalFamily’s just introduced ZillyDilly for the iPad, which offers curated content while minimizing distraction.)

Finally, let’s remember that the basic skills necessary to integrate and deliver great educational content do not need reinventing. These are already developed and well-practiced by the talented and expert folks who bring us our current wonderful textbooks. Working with these folks is the visionary power of Apple’s iBook 2 project.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on January 15, 2011

I feel compelled to share my surprise at my eagerness to share these thoughts with an intelligent readership.

This is why: Against a backdrop of awesome discoveries of the wonders of the social brain and delicate ecologies of life, magical interactive technology is tethering almost everyone to everyone and itself with a chaotic, yet strangely compelling buzz. And we respond ourselves without fully knowing or much thinking. And we are changing it. And it is changing us. Like mechanical pigeons we carry our smartphones. The robots are already shaping us. Really. They are us and we are them a bit already!

And Dr. Turkle, a full professor at MIT, has been skillfully watching it happen with the discerning eye of a scientist, the lenses of a brilliant disciplined thinker and down to earth woman, and a heart of decency, the caring of a mom and compassionate healer. Now, as a captivating writer, she again shares her lifetime’s worth of observations, discoveries, and theories with us.

From what she describes so skillfully, it can be scary. Clearly, this is a malignant process that has emerged quietly and is sneaking up on us. Or is it?

We will react because it has to be taken seriously. But lets react intelligently. Let’s think about it for a while and define our own personal reaction.

Clearly there is no quick fix.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved.

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on October 29, 2011

In contrast to the ever-growing business, industry, and science endeavors that have successfully aligned synergistically with technology in recent years, the critical Family Information Technology (FIT) space is actually becoming increasingly chaotic, destructive, and misaligned.

Experts are worried, and parents are confused and scared as family life is degrading and kids are dumbing down. While it will always keep changing and enticing, the needs of kids and families will not align conveniently and naturally to technology. Studies are confirming repeatedly how the psyco-social development of younger and younger kids is insidiously compromised by unsupervised and unvetted digital media use during the very ages when their brains are being hard wired. Older kids have more attentional problems, weight gain, and less imagination. Families with more media at home are more distant emotionally. Parents have a hard time knowing how to manage their own media use around kids. Parents do their best by limiting, restricting, and blocking media consumption, but have little comprehensive guidance and few tools, and are ultimately not very effective. For those of us who are parents today, this is hardly news, although the problem is rarely conceptualized in its broad outline.

MyDigitalFamily, a Chicagoland startup, is the first enterprise ever to provide practical, comprehensive, convenient solutions to support parents and other caregivers by aligning the best of information technology to support healthy child development and family life. Dr. Eitan Schwarz, a thought leader, author, technophile, and double board-certified expert with over 70,000 hours of direct contact with kids and families, has studied this problem for over 15 years and now responds with his startup’s first entry into the FIT space.

Dr. S invented FITGOALS(R), the world’s first browser fit for children to robustly align technology as parents easily customize the best and safest Internet for each child. FITGOALS embodies his innovative system for supporting parents from the first moments of a preschooler’s encounter with technology, through the lengthy childhood years of forming disciplined habits rooted in healthy character, and finally to mature independent technology consumption in late teens.

Ultimately, MyDigitalFamily hopes to offer its FIT solutions through partnerships and licensing agreements to enable appropriate parental management of ALL youngsters’ digital experiences, including TV, videogames, apps, movies, music, telephony, credit cards, etc.

Interesting readings:

For updated news and more about Dr. S please see www.mydigitalfamily.org and please get in touch, look for us on the iPad, follow our work, and wish us luck!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kleeman/children-and-media_b_1018147.html

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2011/10/14/peds.2011-1062.abstract

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on March 22, 2012

Family Life and Teacher Relationship Must Anchor Youngster Tablet Use

THE URGENT PROBLEM: Technology can benefit but may also harm growing and grown brains alike. Source: MUST SEE long but excellent video. BRAVO! MILKEN INSTITUTE for publishing the best perspective yet: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NcsKGGJAcEs

ANSWER I: Face-to-face contact. Strong family life and an interpersonal social context have to anchor us all. Make the iPad a fun family and school appliance. Prevent alone use except for reading and homework. Create face-to-face media-free human interactivity zones and times and prevent interference with mealtimes, family drives, recess, outdoor play time, other friend and family togetherness opportunities. Parents — park your device before interacting with family. Keep your child’s brain green.

Source: http://www.mydigitalfamily.org

ANSWER II: Technology has to be part of the solution, it is here to stay,

Root technology and integrate it within strong family life and embed it in interpersonal school relationships, starting as early as it takes, like good hygiene and diet. 

Source: “Kids, Parents &Technology: A Guide for Young Families”, book available widely. http://www.mydigitalfamily.org

ANSWER III: ZillyDilly for iPad childproofs the Internet while giving parents and teachers the best age-sensitive content. 

Consider ZillyDilly as the best first child’s iPad app to install and a pre-condition for allowing all other apps, whatever age. ZillyDilly, based on the book, is still the only actual comprehensive and credible hands-on fix for the Internet. ZillyDilly childproofs the Internet while customizing content for health and growth. Apple’s great new CONFIGURATOR tool amplifies ZillyDilly power in schools.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

So, you’re about to have a baby, and there are so many things to do. You decorate your nursery… start interviewing caregivers…and establish a college fund. And, you should start creating a digital media plan, determining how (and how often) your child will use computers, TV, video games, etc. in the years ahead. Parents may not realize it, but they’re hardwiring circuits into their kids’ brains every day. When you give your child unsupervised access to media, you’re basically turning that job over to strangers.

Used properly, electronic content is a good thing. But emerging research regarding “media-soaked kids” reveals that technology can short-circuit healthy development. Studies show that the more time kids spend watching TV, the less time they spend socializing and learning. And that adolescents who play solitary video games become isolated in other ways, too.

In addition:

• A baby’s brain is an amazing phenomenon: flexible, unspoiled, and programmed to build itself in response to its environment. It’s the parent’s responsibility to keep that precious brain “green” by managing what baby is exposed to from birth.
• Kids’ consumption of media is an epidemic, not unlike the obesity epidemic. Left to their own devices in the kitchen, most kids choose junk food. Same goes for technology. Many kids now spend more time with electronic media than they do in school or with their families…what, exactly, are they ingesting?
• Remember the junk food metaphor? A healthy media diet consists of five food groups, or “Growth Opportunities”: Family Relationships, Socialization, Values, Education, and Entertainment (which should be treated like dessert). If media doesn’t serve a clear, positive purpose, kids shouldn’t consume it.
• Parents need not fear technology. Home electronics are merely appliances that exist to serve your family. But just as you’d never give a young child free reign over the stove, don’t hand over the mouse or remote.
• Technology makes a poor babysitter. Parents should choose the media kids consume and be present and involved when kids do so. Move the PC away from the wall, out into the center of the room, and chaperoning kids on their adventures in cyberspace.
• Parents should create a media plan for each child that includes both limits and benefits. The plan should encourage better family relationships, socialization, values, and education enrichment. Make entertainment only a minor part of the plan.

Avoid any device that does not serve clear family and child-centered aims or provides only entertainment, especially if it will isolate the child. Schedule your time to be in the child’s direct presence and put limits of time and place for its use (or negotiate with older children) from the very beginning. Then, begin applying your new approach gradually to all other tech devices kids use (from TV through video games, iPods and iPads.)

Technology has expanded so rapidly, it’s like the Wild West for most of us—vast, exhilarating, unexplored. But the Wild West is not a place to turn kids loose. My goal is to give parents a roadmap for leading their kids through this new frontier, safe and sound.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on April 23, 2012

Let’s leave the debating to scientists and lawyers and just do what’s good for kids! Parents can and should manage children’s media and technology consumption better (and we already do know how) – just as they do good hygiene and nutrition. 

There are those who claim or imply that violent video gaming increased the Norwegian mass killer’s skill and/or motivation, while others argue that there is no connection whatever either in this specific tragedy, or in general, between violent gaming and violent behavior (see Eric Kain in Forbes). BTW, The killer himself supposedly said that he deliberately used violent video gaming, believing that it would improve his performing his mission, not only sharpenig his shooting skills, but also blunting his humanity.

Whatever we eventually learn about the actual specifics within Anders Behring Breivik’s mind that tragic day and how it came to be, this yet another instance of a tiresome debate is nevertheless quite central to how we in a civilized society manage the relationship between the mind / brain, learning, environment, and violent behavior. It is a complex relationship because — and this is not controversial — human behavior is ultimately determined by biological potentials that are shaped or triggered by learning, practice, and experience within the environment and that in turn shapes that environment, which includes people and events and, these days, media. And there are lessons here for parents raising children, which is what this post is about.

As a doctor expert in the effects of violence on kids and adults, I have no doubt that, in general, violence learned begets violence perpetrated. That is not always true, and more true for some people than others, and it also depends on other factors. So causality can be conveniently denied by those who would deny it. I also know from over forty years of practice that for the developing child, environment interacts with biological potentials powerfully: Receiving love is usually better than receiving beatings, and seeing people loving is usually better than seeing people fighting.

So what does the Norway massacre have to do with raising kids? It should put all parents on notice: You could be raising the future president, doctor, or hero you hope for, or you could be raising a future evil murderer you dread, and what you do can matter-so do what you can. It is an uncanny idea, but I am sure that little Anders had a family, celebrated holidays, studied in school, and had been known to some as a nice normal boy, even cute, and even had people who loved him. And nobody ever predicted what he would become. I am also sure that something essential went missing in his upbringing that might have stopped him, but that might not have been obvious at all.

So that brings me to media that are now a pervasive part of kids’ environment. In the past decade or more, I realized that their consumption is out of control in our kids’ lives, and it has often been harming them, sometimes in ways we don’t even know yet. I realized that media consumption now fills huge chunks of our children’s environment, that it interacts with them and filters and structures their interactions with others; media we are all enchanted with that create megabillionaires, produced by strangers to sell products; media engaging and seducing, wowing with magical devices that teens in China even sell their kidneys to possess, media that are altering kids’ brains in ways we are just beginning to appreciate. Media distract parents and kids from normal human interactions, even when there is no violent content.

And I realized how even good smart parents neither realize that they urgently should manage that part of kids’ lives, nor have the confidence that they could actually easily do so with some attention and effort. More parents must grasp that media consumption is a powerful part of their children’s environment that they must and can control better, and they must understand that they do not have to reinvent the wheel nor rely only on short pointers in magazine articles to guide them. The fact is that media often distract parents themselves from good parenting interactions. The facts also are that parents have the home court advantage and can and should manage children’s media better, and that we already know how.

The fact is that there IS a comprehensive, coherent, cogent way to think about what, when, and how much media consumption is good for for the developing child. So, late in my career, I undertook to apply that knowledge that I use daily to the digital world with clarity to educate, empower, and enable as many parents as I could to manage media in their kids’ lives. That is where my journey to increase the amount of goodness in our world has taken me thus far: helping parents raise better kids in this digital world and even giving them a real tool, an app. And there are many good resources out there.

So for starters, if you want to know more about my work, learn at MyDigitalFamily and start thinking about raising your children to practice the Golden Rule, take care of themselves, and love others. And there are video games that are good for kids. You will then discipline yourselves gladly to be doing a little more of what you can to raise children a bit more likely to do good rather than evil, and that can sometimes make all the difference.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on May 20, 2011

/ A Child Psychiatrist Takes a Stand on the Dangers & Delights of Digital Media with A Plan and App for Raising Healthy Kids in a High-tech World /

So, you’re about to have a baby, and there are so many things to do. You decorate your nursery… start interviewing caregivers…and establish a college fund. And, you should start creating a digital media plan, determining how (and how often) your child will use computers, TV, video games, etc. in the years ahead. Parents may not realize it, but they’re hard-wiring circuits into their kids’ brains every day. When you give your child unsupervised access to media, you’re basically turning that job over to strangers.

Used properly, electronic content is a good thing. But emerging research regarding “media-soaked kids” reveals that technology can short-circuit healthy development. Studies show that the more time kids spend watching TV, the less time they spend socializing and learning. And that adolescents who play solitary video games become isolated in other ways, too.

In addition:

A baby’s brain is an amazing phenomenon: flexible, unspoiled, and programmed to build itself in response to its environment. It’s the parent’s responsibility to keep that precious brain “green” by managing what baby is exposed to from birth.

Kids’ consumption of media is an epidemic, not unlike the obesity epidemic. Left to their own devices in the kitchen, most kids choose junk food. Same goes for technology. Many kids now spend more time with electronic media than they do in school or with their families…what, exactly, are they ingesting?

Remember the junk food metaphor? A healthy media diet consists of five food groups, or “Growth Opportunities”: Family Relationships, Socialization, Values, Education, and Entertainment (which should be treated like dessert). If media doesn’t serve a clear, positive purpose, kids shouldn’t consume it.

Parents need not fear technology. Home electronics are merely appliances that exist to serve your family. But just as you’d never give a young child free reign over the stove, don’t hand over the mouse or remote.

Technology makes a poor babysitter. Parents should choose the media kids consume and be present and involved when kids do so. Move the PC away from the wall, out into the center of the room, and chaperoning kids on their adventures in cyberspace.

Parents should create a media plan for each child that includes both limits and benefits. The plan should encourage better family relationships, socialization, values, and education enrichment. Make entertainment only a minor part of the plan.

Avoid any device that does not serve clear family and child-centered aims or provides only entertainment, especially if it will isolate the child. Schedule your time to be in the child’s direct presence and put limits of time and place for its use (or negotiate with older children) from the very beginning. Then, begin applying your new approach gradually to all other tech devices kids use (from TV through video games, iPods and iPads.)

Technology has expanded so rapidly, it’s like the Wild West for most of us—vast, exhilarating, unexplored. But the Wild West is not a place to turn kids loose. My goal is to give parents a roadmap for leading their kids through this new frontier, safe and sound.

Dr. Eitan Schwarz is a Chicago area child psychiatrist. In his book, Kids, Parents &Technology: A Guide for Young Families, Dr. S offers answers, including very specific—some would consider stringent—hourly media plans for kids, organized by age and Growth Opportunity. He will soon be launching ZillyDilly®, a patented process that will allow parents to create a digital menu for their child. The new ZillyDilly.com website will act as a family’s “portal” to digital media, helping parents find appropriate, pre-screened websites and allowing them to track each child’s media usage. For more information, visit www.mydigitalfamily.org .

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on March 5, 2012

As the buzz grows louder with Apple’s new iPad’s launch this week, children will continue to covet the magic tablet more than any other toy. Parents must now keep learning how to better use these devices because these are not toys but actually brilliantly engineered adult tools. In fact, if we really think about it, the iPad is a disembodied robot presaging its more advanced progeny. And in the case of kids, these robots will doubtlessly be settling into their playpens and cribs within less than a decade if we let our current carelessness continue.

It is easy to understand why parents have a hard time resisting their children’s clamor. Parents intuitively understand that an iPad is abundant with novel stimuli to kids’ fascination and engagement. Kids crave it precisely because nature has gifted them with the ‘wow’ experience — powerful curiosity that leads to intense focusing, learning, and growing their minds just as their brains are developing fastest. The good news is that this is also the time for parents to help kids achieve their best brain potential. It is the right time for parents to help properly wire their children’s brains positively for a lifetime.

It is time for parents to begin teaching their children positive media consumption habits early:

– follow a simple tenet, “A device only belongs in my child’s hands or in my home only if I am sure that it will enrich my children’s development and my family’s health.”

– make sure apps and other media are truly effective as educational, and not just claimed to be. Check with your child’s teachers before you buy.

– balance content, prioritizing Family Relationships, Socialization, Values Education, Education Enrichment, and limiting Entertainment.

– tie media consumption to developmental age and maturity: Introduce preschoolers to various media only in a fully-involved, thoughtful and focused way; be flexible and respectful, and avoid major conflict; gradually expand privileges for responsible, mature kids to eventually allow media independence by mid to late teens; and accommodate special needs individuals.

– teach that healthy media self-care is an ongoing process that starts early, like good hygiene and nutrition, and includes self-discipline, zeal for discovery essential for excellence, time and information management, and planning and organizational skills.

– keep homework time and mealtimes totally media-free, and create media-free zones and times at home and in the car.

– park and charge cell phones near the front door upon entering the house.

– keep the iPad and other devices in central common family areas subject to age-dependent limits on private use and alone time.

– keep positive media consumption and its monitoring an ongoing family project and conversation topic.

Some general help from experts and industry could orient parents and teachers and clearly empower them to manage children’s entire digital experience as fully as possible:

– enable parents and teachers to put practices into effect that align technologies with what is good for growing kids and families and teach our kids the boundaries between man and machine, tool and toy, entertainment and striving towards fuller potential.

– clarify for parents and teachers making purchasing decisions about balancing kids’ developmental needs and limiting entertainment.

– provide a consistent, balanced, comprehensive transportable system for homes, schools, libraries, and healthcare.

– assist parents and teachers by organizing all media opportunities and deliver them in ways easy to manage.

– support quality applications, research, and development for special needs.

Luckily, with technology moving forward so fast, we keep getting new chances to thoughtfully improve its uses to help rather then harm kids’ growth and development. Instead of yet again merely allowing market fads and mediocre pop-culture shape the future of the crucial area of kids and technology, we now have yet another chance to use technologies to substantially benefit child development and family life. In fact, some mobile apps, online sites, e-books, and active games for consoles are good beginnings. Now is the time for parents, educators, government, media, and tech companies to seriously collaborate with fresh new ideas.

And there is no place like home to start.

Eitan Schwarz, MD FAACAP DLFAPA, also known as Dr. S, www.mydigitalfamily.org, is the inventor of ZillyDilly for iPad and author of “Kids, Parents & Technology: A Guide for Young Families”. He has researched digital play therapy and is on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on July 7, 2011

A recent multicenter study shows that teen male school bullies will later become perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Dismissing such violent antisocial behavior as “boys will be boys” should be replaced with alarm and rephrasing to “boys who bully will be men who abuse women.” Although cyberbullying may differ in a variety of ways and deserves its own studies, such behavior nevertheless reveals profound deficits of personality that require urgent intervention and ongoing monitoring.

See: School Bullying Perpetration and Other Childhood Risk Factors as Predictors of Adult Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration, Kathryn L. Falb; Heather L. McCauley; Michele R. Decker; Jhumka Gupta; Anita Raj; Jay G. Silverman published 6 June 2011, 10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.91

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on April 29, 2012

It May Be the Start of Something Big

Unplugging media during the annual Screen Free Week, April 30-May 6, is a good start towards increasing awareness of how we’ve slipped into habitual overuse of screen electronics, and maybe a better lifestyle. “The idea is to encourage folks to experiment with limiting, or better yet, abstaining, especially from TV where youngsters are concerned,” according to Eitan Schwarz MD, a Chicago child psychiatrist and child media expert.

“I hope this week can be a first step for many families to become more thoughtful about the place of media in their lives because to really benefit, parents will need to follow through by continuing to limit media consumption and substituting face to face contact time, physical activity, reading or reflecting instead of watching TV or using smartphones or computers. Media-free zones and times at home and in the car, no texting while parenting, and no TV during meal times are some other good lifestyle changes,” according to Dr. Schwarz.

“Child-care professionals can be most helpful by educating, empowering, and giving parents the tools to take a more active role in managing the type of media and time spent,” according to Dr. Schwarz, also known as Dr. S, inventor of ZillyDilly for iPad, a browser that parents now use to manage and totally control time and content online.

“Aligning technology to better meet the needs of families, educators and kids is a slow process that is nevertheless moving forward as many schools are iPadding up. In the meantime, parents and educators are indeed becoming more aware of the need for thoughtful supervision and careful planning of the use of technology with children,” according to Schwarz, a faculty member at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on February 17, 2012

A Nielsen survey just released shows that 77% (and increasing) of 12 year olds and younger kids in tablet-owning households play games, while 57% access “educational” apps. “But most of the games kids play are solitary, and many of those called “educational” apps have hardly been shown to have any such value, since there is no credible standard for that claim,” according to a leading Chicago child-psychiatrist Eitan Schwarz, M.D., also known as Dr. S.

At the same time, as if the home team might be heading for the play-offs, excitement grows in playgrounds of affluent and near-affluent communities the world over. But the buzz is not about a home team. It is about rumors of Apple’s pending launch of the iPad 3. Ever-younger fans — and not just the “geeky” crowd — are heatedly speculating and debating about what wonders The Wizard of Apple might unveil soon to wow them.

And they rightly want to be wowed, according to Dr. S: “Being wowed is healthy fun. It is a great spice of life, it is about Santa Claus, rainbows, birth, surprise parties, great performances, great trees. Parents can bond with kids when they are wowed together and should make the most of such opportunities. Friendships cement around sharing wows. People become closer and in love when bound by a wow,” he adds.

Do tablets deserve wows? “Yes, and we should teach kids why: They are awesome, handsome, fascinating tools with extraordinary powers to engage and interact; produced by human creativity, focused minds, talent and sweat, enabled by all the opportunities afforded in free societies,” advises Dr. S.

The doctor adds, “But most of the buzz and excitement, and most of the uses of tablets today are fluff, wasting time, money, and human potential. They are mostly about entertainment, and kids spend too much time on junk. As a society, we can do much more to align pop-technology to what kids really need. We need to educate, empower, and enable parentsto to find better uses for these wonderful tools: Improve family lives, values education, socialization skills, and credible education enrichment.”

There are other seamy sides to the wow coin. Poverty excludes many kids from the tablet wow crowd. There is no Wizard of Apple for them. When a wowed crowd turns into a mob, it is ugly and destructive: “Kids who cannot share wows are typically bullied. Being excluded, not sharing the wow, not participating because of depression, shyness, anxiety, or just plain lack of interest distances people,” according to Dr. S.

Dr. Schwarz recommends:

• Do not give tablets to preschoolers for solitary play, and discourage excessive solitary play by all kids.
• Treat the tablet as a family appliance with specific rules and keep it charging in a common area.
• Limit and monitor older kids.
• Purchase apps very carefully and understand their value.
• Ask educators for advice about so-called “educational” apps.
• Balance entertainment use with worthwhile growth opportunities like family relationships, socialization, values education and education enrichment.
• Teach kids that having a tablet is a privilege that some kids cannot afford, so they need to be sensitive about showing off their prized possession.
• The tablet acquisition wow is a high. Avoid seeking too many such experiences based on the possession of material things.

“Wow moments can be had every day, quietly, gently, warmly, joyfully, and mixed with awe, with the wonders of nature and people all around us. Children must be taught that those seemingly more ordinary, more reflective wows that nourish the human spirit are really satisfying and enduring and truly worth building their lives around,” advises Dr. S, the veteran doctor with over forty years in practice, himself a recent inventor of ZillyDilly, an iPad app.

Ref:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/02/16/yes-its-true-kids-are-tablet-fiends-and-gaming-apps-are-the-winners

Kids, Parents & Technology: A Guide for Young Families

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on June 2, 2011

Will Young Cyberbullies Become Adult Wife Beaters? Anonymous Technology Can Hide Abuse and Violence

A recent multicenter study shows that teen male school bullies will later become perpetrators of intimate partner violence. Dismissing such violent antisocial behavior as “boys will be boys” should be replaced with alarm and rephrasing to “boys who bully will be men who abuse women.” Although cyberbullying may differ in a variety of ways and deserves its own studies, such behavior nevertheless reveals profound deficits of personality that require urgent intervention and ongoing monitoring.

See: School Bullying Perpetration and Other Childhood Risk Factors as Predictors of Adult Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration, Kathryn L. Falb; Heather L. McCauley; Michele R. Decker; Jhumka Gupta; Anita Raj; Jay G. Silverman published 6 June 2011, 10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.91

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on January 5, 2012

We have been working for over a year on this iPad app and finally launched it today.

Innovative, unique, expert-curated, child/family-centered, developmentally sensitive browser customizable by parents. Timers actually allot a balanced age-, gender-, language-appropriate online experience giving the right proportions of family, social, values, educational, and fun experiences.

I would love to hear comments about it and suggestions for making it even better!

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on December 25, 2012

Summary: Expert urges American Academy of Pediatrics to update screen time guidelines to include tablets and gives parents interim guidance for best use of new tablets for children.

Now that the holiday season is over, many children have in their hands new iPads and Minis and other tablets. As the use of tablets increases among children of all ages, questions and concerns are once again raised about the effects these devices have on children. But parents have had little guidance. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently reaffirmed its stance that parents hold off on any form of screen time until children are two, and limit older preschoolers to less than two hours daily.

However, according to Eitan Schwarz, MD, faculty member at Northwestern University Medical School, expert child and adolescent psychiatrist, families, media and violence, “The AAP guidelines are simply out of date and wrong. While that may seem like a dramatic statement, it stems from the facts that not all screens are the same, nor that interactive experiences are necessarily equivalent to watching TV, nor that any studies have shown damage from early supervised exposure to interactive tablets. To the contrary, several studies and many enthusiastic anecdotal teacher reports show that children become better engaged and learn well via tablets.”

Dr. Schwarz adds, “Simply put: Parents may be doing more harm than good by removing or over-limiting tablets from the lives of their preschoolers. Moreover, the AAP’s two hour daily maximum for preschoolers passively watching TV (while often snacking and leading to obesity) is way too long.” In fact, Dr. S believes that much less TV and more tablet interactivity time of balanced developmental and educational challenges with parent involvement would be much healthier (and probably less likely to be accompanied with snacking.)

Why tablets are beneficial to children

According to Dr. Schwarz, “Unlike television, which can damage psychological development, touchscreen devices – like tablets – have been found to promote learning. Recent research has shown that touchscreens can enhance learning and that calm, creative activities on the touchscreen, such as painting, were similar to their “real world” counterparts in that they “do not seem to adversely affect children’s behavior or attention in the short term.””

Tablets are an essential part of preparing kids for a lifetime of responsible technology use. As tablets and touchscreen devices proliferate, ask this: Will my child be left behind if her grade school, high school or college integrates these popular technologies into the classroom? Being present with children as they learn about tablets helps them realize the benefits while minimizing the risks.

According to Dr. Schwarz, “Rich graphics and engaging gameplay are big motivators for young children. More and more, tablets and educational video games are being embraced by educators and have been shown to increase learning and engagement. There is actually powerful increasing evidence that interactive video games can actually promote healthy behaviors. Parents can bring to children the rich contents of the Internet and many educational and fun apps.”

What tablet activities are harmful to children?

In the past, aggressive games commonly included war games, fighting with toy swords or rifles, and waging war with G.I. Joes by (mostly boy) children. Such limited violence experiments served much the same way as in many mammalian species to practice survival and hunting skills. The vast majority of kids played to master and eventually transform childhood aggressive impulses into later sports competition, healthy ambition and assertion.

According to Dr. Schwarz, “Video games are supposed to serve our kids today in the same way. But something is now very wrong. Magical enchanting video games, with their brilliantly engaging action, graphics and audio, can too readily draw our (mostly boy) children over the top into too intense anti-social and too violent attitudes. The unlimited anti-social or sometimes addicting mayhem and utter pointless damage perpetrated by our youngsters themselves to animal- or human-like creatures in violent games tragically bring out the worst in kids.”

The role of parents in supervising and limiting video game use has again recently taken center stage. Parents worry correctly that tablets can be used anywhere and anytime and are more difficult to supervise. Yet actually, some tablets can be much easier to control than TV, for example with ZillyDilly for iPad and Mini, a new browser management system, so that the best content can be preselected and time spent limited.

The bottom line

Dr. S states, “The time has come for the AAP to revise its screen time guidelines for preschoolers to include less TV and more supervised and controlled interactive media time.”

In the meantime, the benefits of tablet use amongst children are being researched and discovered every day, so parents should make informed, responsible decisions about their children’s tablet use to ensure that they get all the benefits they have to offer. How can you start incorporating positive, fun, educational tablet activities into your family’s life? It’s easier than you think. Dr. Schwarz compiled a list of ten easy ways for parents to ensure safe tablet time for their families.

The Doctor’s Checklist: 10 Ways Parents Can Encourage Safe, Fun Tablet Use

1. Ensure that your child’s games have an agerating that is appropriate for their age. 90% of teenagers say their parents never check game ratings before allowing them to buy them. Always refer to App Store ratings to ensure the games your child wants are rated for his/her age group.
2. Ensure that any tablet or game use is done in a family setting.Allowing children to use tablets or other smart devices in private can encourage unhealthy and antisocial behaviors. Instead, limit use to family settings and snacking and accompany your young players in their adventures.
3. Consult fellow parents and trustworthy resourcesfor an accurate, in-depth review of a game/app before purchasing it. If you’re unsure of a game’s rating or content, check with the child’s teacher or use online resources like Common Sense Media to help inform your decision. You can also visit MyDigitalFamily.org or refer to Kids, Parents & Technology: A Guide for Young Families .
4. Limit time spent with tablets/media. Games are good for eye-hand coordination, but they can easily occupy inordinate amounts of time. Be sure that tablet time is balanced with quality family time and activities. A browser like ZillyDilly for iPad or Mini provides age-appropriate time limits and content.
5. Keep tablets and smart devices in a common area.Tablets should be treated like appliances, so create a common area where they can be charged and parked to help create media free zones.
6. Balance contentbetween healthy growth and mere entertainment, imaginative creativity and empty-headed reactivity to screen content, reflective and busywork, handling three-dimensional and other materials like clay and painting and manipulating images on two dimensional screens, and between active play and lazy sitting and snacking. Be aware of signs that your child is over-engaged or addicted to games or a device, and put proper use restrictions in place to counteract this behavior, and don’t hesitate to consult a credentialed specialist. The younger your child, the more permanent is the brain he is forming.
7. Limit web use to age-appropriate sites. It’s too easy to stumble upon unsafe or inappropriate online content. Keep online activity restricted to age-appropriate sites and monitor online activity closely. Not all “educational” apps are actually educational.
8. Get involved with your child’s teachers to ensure that school work isn’t suffering. To make sure that you’ve struck the right balance of tablet use in your home, keep a close eye on your child’s performance. If grades begin to slip, it might be time to revisit his/her media plan and adjust it.
9. Talk to the parents of your child’s friends to learn what media they allow in their homesso when your child begins to have sleepovers and play dates, they aren’t playing any violent games or spending too much time online or snacking.
10. Require your approval for all game/app purchases.Establish the rule early on that your approval is required for all game purchases. If tablet purchases are made using your personal information, be sure to keep your username, payment information, and password private. This will ensure that no unapproved apps will show up on your device.

Eitan Schwarz, MD, FAACAP, DLFAPA, is a double board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist with 42+ years of continuing office practice and service to kids and families in Chicago area schools and agencies. Dr. Schwarz, also known as Dr. S, was also a play therapy tech media researcher, has done extensive writings on the effects of violence, technology and screen time on children. He is the inventor of ZillyDilly.

(c) Copyright 2012 Eitan Schwarz MD

Keywords:  iPad, tablets, screentime, screen time, american academy of pediatrics, kids, TV, Mini, Apple, video game, violence, parent control, zillydilly, browser, education, safety, video game violence, video game healthy, interactive, media, guidelines, manage

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on October 3, 2013

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on December13, 2014

These ideas are worth bearing in mind as parity for mental health coverage and major healthcare reform take us into uncharted waters.

Our brains give us language, and used expertly it can be an awesome neuroscience tool.

In fact, the profession that trained me — modern psychiatry — was first built on the careful and caring art of listening to speech and language in all their nuances and responding in kind as a central element of psychiatric practice. Medical and non-medical psychology pioneers have worked brilliantly and diligently for over a century to free the mentally ill from stigma and to understand and treat them humanely. These pioneers tried to base their practices on systematic notions of the brain / mind that made sense. They tried to infer brain function and structure from mental processes and behavior in the most humane ways — talking with and intensely and actively listening to patients.

Of course, psychoactive medications and other substances, their development, production, and consumption, and their side and main effects are our current industrial-scale neuroscience applications. These applications are still pretty crude, since we are unable to target specific brain functions without affecting others or the whole body. Nevertheless, we are able to remediate mood, anxiety, and thought disorders, and people do find relief from many very painful mental states.

And, of course, we also already have language — highly refined tools to address specific functions of the brain with minimal side effects. We already have precise ways to effect specific changes in behavior, cognition, experience, and consciousness. Our brains are already hard wired to develop language to evolve us into self-aware humane creatures possessing powerful ways of monitoring, understanding, organizing, and managing ourselves in our world and of governing our bodies. And we are good at using it as a neuroplastic tool.

For ages, man has wondered about his mind: Where do his behavior, awareness, consciousness, cognition, identity, irrationality, and emotions originate and how are they all orchestrated? More recently, the mind had been understood to be connected with the brain, yet their relationship has remained a fascinating mystery. In the last few exciting decades, the traditional mind / brain duality has become less distinct as we are carefully unfolding the wonders of the brain. I have a brain, therefore I am. Here’s a brief overview:

Even before the awesome brain imaging technology we have today, neuroscience has interested humankind for generations as we have attempted to understand the mind in terms of its physical home base, the brain. In the 1930’s the Canadian neurosurgeon Dr. Wilder Penfield stimulated the living human brain directly in conscious people and elicited thoughts and images they described in language. Like the Italian Dr. Luigi Galvani’s electric stimulation of frog muscle tissues centuries earlier yielding movement, Dr. Penfield’s brain stimulation revealed the mind.

Earlier yet, in fact about 120 years ago, Austrian Dr. Sigmund Freud himself started his career in his new psychiatry as a neuroscientist with his “Project.” He wanted to understand the severely mentally ill, and tried to understand and treat inpatients with another physician, the Parisian Dr. Pierre Janet. Dr. Freud was first to predict the existence of neurotransmitters, the bases of currently the most developed aspect of neuroscience, psychopharmacology. He also predicted correctly that neurophysiologies of traumatic memories differ from “ordinary” memories. Dr. Freud essentially posited that raw love and aggression are built into basic brain wiring, but need refining, balancing, and development via childhood experiences, mediated largely by language. These were astounding speculations for his time, founding modern psychiatry on his conviction that mental health is rooted in science.

But he also understood that the science he knew was just the beginning of understanding people. Lacking the technology to continue his investigations on a neuronal level, he and his colleagues settled for the functional level. They struggled to picture and heal the mind/brain with careful observation and use of language-based data and behavior.

He brought the idea of the unconscious into the mainstream of Western thought, i.e. that most mind / brain activity is outside of our direct awareness. He also emphasized that language-based functions dominate when we address social and intellectual challenges. In part, his “making the unconscious conscious” means putting urges into words that can delay, encourage, or substitute for behaviors. Obviously, nuanced language and its myriad speech expressions provide the highest level of our intra-species interactions.

So the histories of psychiatry and its basic science, neuroscience, are intimately connected. Indeed, many of the pioneers of modern neuroscience were steeped in Freud’s psychoanalytic methods and teachings, and similarly became curious about the mind / brain connection.

For example Dr. Paul Schilder studied how our body image is produced in the brain, and his wife Loretta Bender MD and her outstanding colleague at Bellevue Hospital, Barbara Fish MD, tried desperately to understand and treat children severely ill with psychosis as suffering from brain disorders, even before we really understood the differences between autism and schizophrenia, and their papers show true wisdom about brain and mind development.

Our National Institutes of Mental Health became the most important international neuroscience resource as research and training blossomed in psychiatry departments in medical schools the world over until the early 1980’s. Many psychiatrists and scientists trained in such programs, which always contained heavy emphases on “talk therapy” language and play (language in action) therapy with children. Basically, this training was in applied neuroscience.

In fact, in recent years, energized by Columbia University’s psychoanalyst / neuroscientist Dr. Eric Kandel’s Nobel Prize winning findings several decades ago, neuroscience soon exploded when technology gave it the tools. Dr. Kandel demonstrated that relevant environmental events can cause a physical alteration in brain structure and function we otherwise call learning. Learning is in fact brain changes visible under the microscope.

This bears repeating: Learning IS physical brain changes AND NOT “brain changes are caused by learning.” And psychotherapy IS learning…and IS brain changes too (the therapy happens in the patient, as every psychiatrist has to know, just as the sale happens in the buyer, as every good salesman knows). Psychotherapy – a blend of emotional and intellectual learning that often enhances brain maturation – needs nuanced language to fine tune judgement and social behavior. So brain changes need language to fine tune judgement and social behavior. Compared to medications, brain changes from language-based therapies can be more targeted and relatively free of unwanted effects.

Thus was the mind / brain duality finally breached by Dr. Kandel. Serious mental health professionals and scholars are now justifiably excited about repeated brain type confirmations of clinical wisdom about the mind part of the mind / brain entity accumulated over the past 120 years. American psychiatrists are scholarly leaders in current neuroscience research, especially brain functioning and its applications in the diagnoses and treatments of the mentally ill.

Neuroscience is the basic science of psychiatry. Today’s psychiatric practice is to neuroscience as, say, chemical engineering is to chemistry in a humane medical context.

Technology now allows us to co-relate very limited aspects of brain and mind. But let us remember a significant limitation. Knowing how muscles and bones make movement does not get us anywhere near explaining the wondrous art of the piano, ballet, or gymnastic performer. Or superb knowledge of telephony or computer science does not bring understanding of the rich language-based communication and information handled by the machines. (But this type of knowledge does help us understand and “fix” broken “brains” and minds and substantially help people.)

As a clinician, I have been thinking actively and using what is known about the mind / brain for almost fifty years each time I interact with a patient through language and offer medications, which makes me a neuroscience engineer.

While we all hope that the most impactful medical value of neuroscience will come soon to prevent, diagnose, and treat people with mental illness, it is also already bringing wonderful new opportunities in education, child development, and even law. Neuroscience is way more significant than its current faddish brain training sideshow.

For example, neuroscience shows that the elderly playing some videogames slow down the aging process of their brains. Dementia is slowed in the elderly by greater exercise of their mind / brains in an engaging everyday life. The declining brain thrives on exercising its highest functions, including language.

So, this suggests that we must also challenge our kids’ brains and minds well with disciplined language and its uses in math, social studies, and science. Let’s show them the best of esthetics in poetry, music, dance, and painting, etc. if we want to develop their mind / brains and whet their appetites for more of these truly effective brain foods.

IMHO, the power of placebos and healing relationships are still understudied in neuroscience (Louis Lasagne, M.D. and Jerome Frank, M.D., Ph.D, were among my most memorable and wisest teachers). Placebos were always powerful medicines. Great physicians from antiquity recognized the power of hope in healing. Hope works wonders, as does great advertising and great leadership. And that too is probably wired into our brains (as are trust and faith and love). But you must access hope through language and mind.

One final opinion: I firmly believe that the actual form and contents of the creative living brain’s nuanced complexity will always, if not for a very long time, remain awesomely mysterious, and its ever changing, shimmering gossamer (Dr. Penfield’s description, I think) a totality and elegance unexplainable.

Language, supported by its biological infrastructures interacting with environment, is the human mind / brain’s main function, and a royal road to understanding its workings. It is essential to understanding individual people’s minds and connecting with them across space and time.

Paradoxically, at the very same time that neuroscience is confirming the biological bases of much what we have learned clinically about the human mind in language-based therapies in the past century, actual American psychiatric practice in most areas away from rare metropolitan pockets is rapidly drifting too far away from its intelligent, disciplined, humanistic, mindful, language-based roots bridging the mind and brain. This trend is especially true of inpatient and outpatient care reimbursed by Medicaid and Medicare on behalf of poor people who are mentally ill.

To learn about neuroscience and its applications today, Dr. Kandel and Charlie Rose’s The Brain series is a unique resource.

http://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms/178252?_ga=1.62766633.441222680.1393170801   

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on January 14, 2016

Poster presentation

All rights reserved.

American Psychiatric Association 162nd Annual Meeting

San Francisco, CA

May, 2009

DIGITAL MEDIA (INTERNET, VIDEOGAMES, SOCIAL NETWORKS, CELL PHONES, MUSIC PLAYERS…): BENEFITS IN THE PSYCHOTHERAPY AND FAMILY LIVES OF YOUTH

Eitan D. Schwarz, M.D., D.L.F.A.P.A., F.A.A.C.A.P.

EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES:

At the conclusion of this presentation, the participant should be able to utilize interactive media in therapy with children and adolescents and offer parents guidance about their beneficial use in the home.

SUMMARY:

Objective: Although digital media (DM) have penetrated deeply into children’s play and family lives and are clearly here to stay, their potential benefits for mental health have received scant systematic attention. Play with children has been a potent diagnostic and therapy tool since the early days of child psychiatry. This report describes (a) DM ‘play’ in office practice (DMP), and (b) a development-based goal-directed structured method for parents to promote healthy DM home uses. Method: (a) During an 18 month period, 28 non-psychotic patients ages 5-20 had DMP at some point in their care. Connecting their music players to a quality stereo music system enabled comfortable shared access to the patient’s personal music collection. An extra monitor and keyboard, connected to the online office computer, brought the Internet, games, e-mail, and social network sites into therapeutic interactions. (b) Parents were offered guidelines from infancy through adolescence for DM home use when indicated. Results: There have been no adverse effects. (a) DMP enabled observations of cognitive, sensorimotor, and social functioning; rich interactive therapeutic opportunities, including enhanced cooperation and self-disclosures; treatments of specific DM-related problems; and other opportunities not as easily accessible by other means. While welcoming DMP, patients sometimes preferred traditional methods. College students utilized e-mail for clinical communications. Parents accepted DMP within overall clinical plans. (b) Guidelines for DM home use were well received by parents. Conclusions: DM can benefit the mental health of youth and their families, but studies and standards are needed. (a) DMP complements traditional methods and appears effective, well accepted, and safe, but should be used cautiously and only for specific therapeutic aims and with parental approval. (b) Age-specific structured guidelines can help parents manage DM to benefit youth and family life.

REFERENCES:

1) Singer DG, Singer JL: Handbook of Children and the Media. Thousand Oaks, Sage Publications, 2001.

2) Axline VM: Play Therapy. New York, Ballantine Books, 1969.

mydigitalfamily.org/?page_id=249

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on February 3, 2014

The time is soon, place here, and regular people are tethered to technology “alone together”, as Sherry Turkle quips. It is a world where the interactive virtual realities we ourselves create can bewitch us into epidemics of addictive perversions and obsessions.

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Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on September 21, 2015

Children need us to manage their experiences interacting with media. Parents need basic ideas to guide them.

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More and more, recent press coverage is now exploring the new explosive trend in younger age groups consuming interactive media via touchscreens. “Is this trend a menace or boon?” is what people wonder, and the answer is usually a reasonable “Maybe a boon, but we need more research.” And there follow debates among experts.

This is hardly helpful. Parents cannot wait for the science to catch up because they urgently need an answer to “How do we effectively parent the touchscreen generation?”

– How’s a parent to compete with the iPad iPiper winning their kids away? Interactive touchscreens are so much more engaging than TV. And even people.

– Do we need to proactively manage this area of childhood, and is managing the same as policing? Managing means providing the best balance — and there are infinite resources via media.

– How do we frame the issues in a comprehensive, integrated manner that can empower parents and educators to manage interactive media rationally, beginning with preschool and extending through older youth? Parenting today requires active, proactive media management.

– How do we manage powerful sensory stimuli radiating from tablets and their successors that reach deeply into developing minds and brains and likely affect later personality, cognition, and civilized functioning?

– Even if they know what to do, how can technology empower parents with the tools they need?

Parents need a fresh way of thinking to make best media diet choices for their kids and families that factors in the fact that touchscreen tablets are powerful tools that alter emotions and behavior, and are not just toys. Such a fresh framework would lead a parent to react to the excellent brief video in the article above by noting that the woman is appropriately engaged and close to the child and waiting for the child to show more reciprocity, like eye contact, even though this moment probably shows a child engaged in learning with good attention.

Interacting with seductive machines can be a powerful organizer for social development and brain maturation, so is this kid missing out by not engaging more fully with the person? Can this child be affected significantly for the worse because of such a moment? Definitely yes, in my way of thinking — if it is a sample of a pervasive lifestyle feature for him that did not originate with a disorder. But this causal extreme is probably rare.

Nevertheless, a careful parent would have chosen content and would be ready with a well-considered plan for managing both limits and incentives to prevent excessive isolation. Unfortunately, there are now kids out there who have already spent too much of their childhood allowed to withdraw into the touchscreen for too long. A growing number is turning just four. It seems there could be a lot more, including many of yours. Count on it.

Actually, the answers to these are sensible, straightforward, and already right in front of us:

FIRST, we know already plenty about what’s good for kids and families. We already have a good systematic framework to understand childhood – let’s not ignore it. Let’s not reinvent it, but just apply it as a philosophy we can tailor to kids growing up today. As we learn more about how interactive tech changes us, we can be smarter, but for now let’s use what we already know.

Parents need to see the issues inherent in the kid-tech encounter more clearly against a backdrop of child development and brain maturation. They need to believe they can be effective. Then they need to adopt a sensible, systematic and rational system of thinking, much as they do for meal planning, not merely relying on antiquated rules or piecemeal advice. This is not the same as policing, but additionally calls for providing healthy, growth promoting content. Professionals can help parents by providing convenient “white lists” of vetted content in a technologically protected “sandbox”.

SECOND, parents need education to understand how the same reliable principles of parenting they already know can apply to new tech devices.

– One rule is supreme: Interactive technology belongs in children’s lives only if it is balanced in appropriate content and time spent with healthy activities and customized for each child’s needs. Parents must prevent excessive sedentary lone media consumption by youngsters and favor face to face time and physical play.

– Be ready to invest extra effort. Paradoxically, technology is not necessarily convenient, but adds to the challenges of parenting, and is not the ideal convenient babysitter so many parents relish. Keeping kids busy is not necessarily good parenting.

– Your own attitudes towards media may be obstacles to good example-setting. Parents may already be biased: The same candy-colored, magically engaging, sleekly enticing computing machines invented by our wonderful, most talented, brilliant cultural icons have admittedly already seduced many into a dependency. Awareness and self-monitoring and discipline are hard to maintain.

– Children need us to remember they are our children. Technology does not relieve us of our duty to kids. They need us to stay in control (or take it back) as we return to sound child rearing principles in all areas of their lives, including the massive area of media consumption. And the younger they are, the more they need our caregiving to focus in this area.

So is technology a menace or a boon? Yes. No. Maybe. Children still need their parents to clean up their world and to make available its best. We must also be alert to remain good role models in setting examples in our own tech consumption behaviors. Doing it right, through active systematic management, will allow us to embrace interactive technology’s power and make it a great boon to kids and family life, hands down.

Dr. Schwarz is a child psychiatrist author and inventor passionate about best use of media in families.

http://psychiatrists.psychologytoday.com/rms/178252?_ga=1.62766633.441222680.1393170801 

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on December 15, 2013

I have a mind, therefore I am: psychiatry bridges neuroscience, language, medicine, consciousness and daily life. Where is it heading?

Eitan D Schwarz MD DLAPA FAACAP
Clinical Assistant Professor Northwestern University School of Medicine
Skokie, IL

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on October 31, 2012

Dr. Schwarz orients parents and educators dealing with children’s response to disasters.

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on June 22, 2012

Teen risk-taking is biologically rooted and precedes the entrepreneurship we need as a society. While online evils cannot be totally avoided, parents and teachers must start teaching good judgement in consuming media from the early years as they do traffic safety, hygiene, and later, good driving.

As a veteran child psychiatrist, I know that the generic cause of tragic incidents such as Skout’s and that well-dramatized in David Schwimmer’s “Trust” ultimately cannot be completely prevented.

From an evolutionary and neuroscience / psychology POV, teens are necessarily hard-wired and socially sanctioned to be “entrepreneurial”, as are most mammalian young. This, not only to eventually evolve the youngster into unique a individual, but also to begin to become the essential innovator needed to contribute to society’s diversity and survival.

Any good mentor for modern startups will teach the cardinal principle that entrepreneurs must experiment, take chances, and make and learn from mistakes. And BTW, only free societies like ours, Israel’s, and other modern democracies support such strivings. As a startup founder myself, my favorite mentor recently admonished me, “Go out and make mistakes!”

But not all teens are true entrepreneurs, because of a variety of reasons, including lack of opportunities, talent, persistance, etc. Additionally, many are immature, lacking sufficient insight, judgement, or trust in adults who care to help make major decisions. These young experimenters are vulnerable prey to predators. Moreover, younger and younger kids are also consuming more and more media and are even more vulnerable.

Another, more insidious, less sensational, but dangerously enduring risk is the progressive damage to children’s intellect, social skills, health, and emotional development that excessive or inappropriate media consumption can cause.

So what are parents to do? Start early and continue to raise digital kids with good media consumption habits solidly embedded in Values and family life beginning in the preschool years. So I wrote the book and invented a media manager to help. I believe that children and families of all communities would benefit from ZillyDilly as they try to figure out how iPads benefit and fit into education and home life, and not the other way round.

REFERENCES

As these trends evolve, you might find the following helpful and might also take a look at the ZillyDilly solution to kids online and share with school decision makers and parents.

DEEPER BACKGROUND ABOUT KIDS AND TECH:

http://www.naeyc.org/files/naeyc/file/positions/PS_technology_WEB2.pdf

http://www.pewinternet.org

http://www.childrenssoftware.com

http://www.commonsensemedia.org

http://www.mydigitalfamily.org

http://www.lulu.com/shop/search.ep?type=&keyWords=Eitan+Schwarz&x=9&y=3&sitesearch=lulu.com&q=b

SKOUT INCIDENT:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57453404-93/can-social-networks-protect-your-kids

SCHWIMMER’S “TRUST“:

https://mydigitalfamily.org/?s=Trust

ENTREPRENEURS:

http://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-Innovation/dp/0307887898/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339943114&sr=1-1&keywords=Lean+startup

Eitan Schwarz MD DLFAPA FAACAP

Northwestern U Medical School.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

©All rights reserved

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on December 27, 2012

As younger and younger kids use powerful new technologies, parents and educators must learn to manage these interactions more systematically and effectively.

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on April 5, 2012

Going gaga for Google goggles is yet another spectacle we can look forward to, centered in our youth pop culture. What is your strategy as a parent? As you see this coming, are you going to just react or be proactive? Dr. S’ answer is to anchor all media consumption in a systematic way at home.

Originally Published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on March 15, 2012

The new iPad will replace older models. While the market for the iPad 2 will thrive, giving your old model could benefit lots of children. Here are ideas about how to use the hand- me- downs.

Originally Published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on March 14, 2012

Many users will replace their older models soon. Kids in schools all over can benefit greatly from donations. Here’s how.

Originally published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on January 23, 2012

Apple’s recent elephantine entry into the textbook world is another evolutionary step in technology’s reach into our lives. Let’s hope that like Apple’s other innovations, it aligns technology to the well-being of children and families.

Originally Published by ThinkerMedia: BestThinking.com on November 6, 2009

By applying sound child-rearing and family support principles, parents can now create balanced media diets that lead youngsters to the values and orientation they will need to succeed in an increasingly media-rich world.

The following is an excerpt from my book, Media, Kids and Technology: An Instruction Manual for Young Families, a comprehensive and practical child- or family-centered instruction manual offering step-by-step instructions on how to turn digital media into powerful parenting tools that enrich family life.

The instruction manuals we receive with digital media devices don’t teach parents the most important things — how to use the new gadgets to fully benefit youngsters and family lives. By applying sound child-rearing and family support principles, parents can now create balanced media diets that lead youngsters to the values and orientation they will need to succeed in an increasingly media-rich world. Ever-evolving technologies are bringing new opportunities into our homes at an astounding pace. Do we really want strangers influencing our children in ways we even don’t know? Starting kids early on family-oriented media diets can prevent such a future.

We all recognize the allure and power of media. It is likely that without much planning on your part, media have already led to changes in your home life and in some of the ways you interact with your children. In general, the earlier you start making the healthy use of media a normal part of family life the more you will be doing to improve it now and in the future.

Recent studies in respectable journals suggest that media consumption among children is pervasive and that early childhood patterns persist into later years. One team concludes, “These children are growing up in a media-saturated environment with almost universal access to television, and a striking number have a television in their bedroom. Media and technology are here to stay and are virtually guaranteed to plan an ever-increasing role in daily life, even among the very young. Additional research on their developmental impact is crucial to public health.” Another team reports another study that the more time they spent watching TV, the less time children spent doing other things with family members, homework and creative play. Still another team from San Diego State University recently reported that high users of media at young ages are likely to remain high users when older.

GOOD FAMILIES MAKE BETTER BRAINS

Believe it or not, you are actually gradually programming circuits in your child’s brain every day. Let’s start at the beginning and review what we know. Of all creatures, mammals are the most developed socially, and we humans are the most developed of all mammals. What makes that possible is our human brain. Some scientists now believe that our brain is probably the most sophisticated object in the universe and that it has evolved primarily to enable us to live and survive with each other in social groups. Our brains did not evolve to do rocket science, but mostly to enable our survival with each other. Survival isolated in the wild does not require its complexity, but living with people in social groups does.

YOU OWN IT: TAKE IT AND KEEP IT

Becoming parents (and we are constantly becoming and re-becoming parents as our children grow) is actually a personal developmental journey for each of us. Studies even show that a new mother’s brain itself is changed for her new role. If we reflect back upon our pre-parent years, we can now appreciate how much we ourselves have evolved as persons. Going in, we had known that our mission as parents will be to work hard at loving our babies by providing them the best and safest emotional, psychological, and physical opportunities.

OK. This is how we start. Your must first get it very clear in your mind that you can and will make intelligent decisions and find ways to raise good kids in our technology-rich world.

Your first decision is to commit yourself to a new challenge: From now on, you will include managing your family and children’s media interactions within your overall idea of yourself as your family’s leader. Your will now be aiming at assuring that your children’s interactions with media become only assets to their growth and development.

JUMP RIGHT IN

SEARCH WORDS: furniture home computer children family

Here we come to another major shift we must make in our thinking that leads us to seriously consider moving the computer away from the wall – the spatial arrangement of the online family computer within a room and its impact on interactions among family members in your home. If we want to change how we use the online home computer, we must change how it is placed. Changing the positioning of people interacting with media, you quickly expand the role of the personal computer in your home to create a family computer that provides new opportunities.

BEING FULLY PRESENT TOGETHER IS THE GLUE

Being fully present together with the child means being actively and in the here and now fully attentive, connected, plugged, and tuned into the moment of being with the child. Being fully present with your baby is speaking, listening, smelling, touching and looking together. Parent-child interactions commonly involve doing for, doing to, and doing with each other. But as far as healthy emotional development goes, being fully present together is the most important component of these interactions. Social bonds and moral or ethical behaviors remain underdeveloped if parent are not sufficiently present to be with their children.

Article by Eitan ‘Dr. S®’ Schwarz, MD

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