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Researchers secretly observed 55 families dining in fast food restaurants to see how often parents directed their attention to their smartphones rather than to their children.

What, Be Still?

Imagine sitting quietly in a room for ten minutes, doing nothing but being still. Could you — or your kids — handle it? Or would you, if given the option, self-administer electric shocks as a preferred alternative?

When Sexual Compulsivity Interferes with Intimacy

Through our use of cell phones, laptops, and tablets, we can feel as though we are more “connected” than ever before. We can check Facebook posts, send emails, stream video, or text our partners – all while sitting on the bus, in Starbucks or at work. But the question remains: Does this tethering to the Internet lead to greater intimacy and connection with ourselves and the ones we love, or does it simply provide an illusion of intimacy? What happens to those individuals who already struggle to incorporate sexual intimacy as a loving, caring behavior in their marriage or partnership?

Violent Gaming

While kids everywhere play violent videogames, parents wonder about negative effects from all that shooting, maiming and killing. Some scientific research is worth our attention.

Paying Attention

A local summer camp recently asked its 6- and 7-year-olds to answer a simple question: name something you’d like your parents to start doing with you.

“The feeling that ‘no one is listening to me’ makes us want to spend time with machines that seem to care about us.”*

Machines that seem to care? Psychologist Sherry Turkle is referring to robots designed to function as companions. But she might as well be referring to Facebook and email and text messaging — all the ways we experience ourselves, via our devices, as the target of other people’s interest. The ding announces an email received and our heart speeds up: someone cares, someone is interested. Ditto when the sweet chime announces a text message, or new entries appear on our Facebook page.

Sacred Spaces With Kids

Is it ever easy to connect with our children, to get them to open up about their lives? Surprisingly, it’s what they yearn for — to be truly seen and heard in all their authentic dreams and hopes and fears. It’s what we all desire, but kids need it differently than we do.

Table the Text

In this text exchange, the responder might be playful … or angry … or indifferent — we can’t know for sure. That’s because all we see are the words; we don’t hear emotion.

Caution: Facebook Ahead

A 2011 review* of 5,000 divorce petitions revealed that 33% of allegations of improper spousal behavior cited postings on Facebook as evidence. This figure is an increase from 20% when a similar review was first conducted in December 2009 by the popular British divorce website, www.divorce-online.co.uk.

Security Blanket

Remember the quiet ache the first time you left your little one with a babysitter, or at daycare, or at school that first day? It's as tough for parents to loosen the emotional umbilical cord as it is for our youngsters, but we do it because we know we must — so they can grow and develop in many important ways.