Thank you to all the families who were able to join us this week for our first Middle School Parent Partnership of the year. We had a great showing at the meeting including a super number of Lower School parents who we also invited to join us. This fall we have invited our Lower School parents to our Middle School Parent Partnership meetings in an effort to create more connections across divisions, to share wisdom, and to leverage our common parenting questions and wonderings.

For our meeting this week, Matthew Baylor, our Middle School Ed Tech Coordinator, shared insights about our Middle Schoolers’ personal tech use including AI use and shared some of what he is teaching our students from the AI and Ethics course from MIT in our Technology classes. The group then dove into discussions about our all school read, Stolen Focus. There were some great conversations that often landed with parents hoping for more community and connection around these issues. Parents also had the chance to post some questions about navigating technology with their children: 

“What is the balance of knowing how to use essential tech with stewardship/mindfulness/discernment avoiding overuse/dependence/addiction?” 

“How do we make community agreements around this dynamic landscape?”

“What is the best and worst way to introduce a phone into your child’s life?”

They also posted some wisdom: 

“WAIT on phone use as long as possible!”

“App and screen time limits that require my kids to request screen time at each session.” 

“Allow initial tech usage on a shared family device.” 

“No devices in rooms as much as possible and definitely not overnight.” 

“Promote phones for calling people again. Call grandparents. Strengthen that tool again of voice communication.” 

“When kids/friends come over to our house, we ask them to put away devices until they leave.” 

“A designated tech table/spot in the house is where it lives.”

This is a big topic that we are all grappling with as we raise children together. It was wonderful to see so many parents engaged in such an important conversation, and we will keep the discussion going throughout the year with more events later this year.  If you missed the meeting, here is the slideshow that guided our conversations. You can always find our Middle School Parent Partnership meeting resources on the Parent Portal under Division Links/Middle School/Middle School Parent Partnership Presentations.