The 3 Ms of Fearless Digital Parenting

Book excerpt: How can we protect our kids online—and teach them to protect themselves? Do you feel overwhelmed with technology in your home? Do headlines about this app or that website make you feel anxious and undecided as a parent? Do you get advice from many experts—but still feel unclear on what to do? This book unpacks the “3 Ms” of parenting in the digital age, a proven approach used with thousands of parents through the work of Digital Respons-Ability and its founder, Carrie Rogers-Whitehead. When Carrie first started working in the field of digital citizenship, she found significant gaps in how digital parenting was taught. Not only were parents not informed enough around technology, they also didn’t understand child developmental stages. Parents’ expectations for their children were unrealistic because they didn’t know how online responsibility changes at different ages, as children’s brains change. From this realization, Carrie developed the 3 Ms—three approaches to digital parenting, based on specific age ranges: Model (ages 0-8) Manage (ages 8-13) Monitor (ages 13-18) By teaching parents how to change their approach to digital responsibility based on the developmental stage of their child, she has seen significant success in fostering happier and healthier relationships between parents and kids, as well as safer tech use by kids at all ages. This book presents Carrie’s approach in an accessible, easy-to-implement manner, giving all parents the opportunity to develop better tech use in their own homes and families, and to parent confidently and without fear.