Parenting in the Age of Digital Distraction: Helping Our Children (and Ourselves) Find Balance with Technology

with Emily Cherkin, The Screentime Consultant, LLC

October 17, 2018

6:00 p.m.

Free childcare for ages 3+ provided. RSVP required.

Stop fighting: Find balance! Join us for an evening with Emily Cherkin, The Screentime Consultant, LLC, who has spent over 15 years working with families, schools, and children across rapidly-changing digital landscapes. A longtime classroom teacher, a current parent, and a conflicted user of technology, Emily’s talk will:

• Focus on technological changes over time
• Address current research about screens and brain development
• Challenge parents to look at how technology is used at home
• Help you regain balance in an age of digital distraction

Armed with humor, empathy, and evidence-based research, Emily will help our community to normalize, strategize, and optimize the way screentime affects us as individuals and families. Emily is "tech-positive" and recognizes that technology is here to stay.

About Emily Cherkin:

A native Seattleite, Emily Cherkin has worked with families and schools in Seattle for fifteen years. In addition to navigating the challenges of parenting in a distracted digital age, Emily also facilitates “tech-positive” parent workshops, professional development trainings, and school presentations around Seattle. Emily is a graduate of the University of Washington, where she was a Mary Gates Undergraduate Leadership Scholar, and she completed her Master’s Degree in Education (with a focus on Conflict Resolution and Peaceable Schools) from Lesley University in Boston. After three years in New York City, Emily returned to Seattle where she taught 7th grade English and created a curriculum based on screen usage, media literacy, and bullying at Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences (SAAS). She has also worked as an academic coach for children and adults with executive function challenges, including ADHD, and recently partnered with a creative arts preschool to open a coworking space for working mothers in her neighborhood. Professionally, Emily is a presenter at the Northwest Association of Independent Schools (NWAIS) Annual Conferences; a Program for Early Parent Support (PEPS) former board member, group leader, and guest speaker on screentime; a member of the Children’s Screentime Action Network (CSTAN); and a soon-to-be graduate of Leading Women in Technology’s Women in Leadership (WILPower) program. More important than her work life, however, Emily is also mom to 10-year-old Max and 7-year-old Sylvie, who present daily thrills and challenges. In attempt to find balance with her own digital distractions, Emily recently deleted her social media apps, but notices she now compulsively checks the weather, which really does not change as often as social media posts. Like most parents, Emily considers herself a “work in progress” and is definitely grateful for things like good coffee, supportive friends and family members, and the beautiful Pacific Northwest