Growing Up Social by Gary Chapman + Giveaway!!

Growing Up Social by Gary Chapman (#1 New York Times bestseller The 5 Love Languages) & Arlene Pellicane + Giveaway!

About the book:

-Softcover

-209 pages

-Parent Resources

-Discussion Guides for every chapter (perfect for a bible study!)

Is technology bringing your family closer together or driving you farther apart?

Children today are no longer playing hide-and-seek outside or curling up with a good book—instead they’ve been introduced to a world of constant digital entertainment through television, video games, and mobile devices. And while technology has the potential to add value to our lives and families, it can also erode a sense of togetherness and hinder a child’s emotional and social development.

In Growing Up Social, Gary Chapman and Arlene Pellicane will empower you with the necessary tools to make positive changes…starting today. Through stories, wit, and wisdom, you’ll discover how to take back your home from an over dependence on screens. Plus, you’ll learn to teach the five A+ skills that every healthy child needs to master: affection, appreciation, anger management, apology, and attention.

•Equip your child to be relationally rich in a digital world

•Replace mindless screen time with meaningful family time

•Establish simple boundaries that make a huge difference

•Discover what’s working for families that have become screen savvy

•Learn healthy ways to occupy your child while you get things done

Now is the time to equip your child to live with screen time, not for screen time. No phone, tablet, or gaming device can teach your child how to have healthy relationships—only you can.

Check out the book trailer here!

Here’s the official website

Review:

When I was first asked to review a copy of Growing Up Social, I was a little excited as it sounded like something I would really be interested in reading. When I was a child, we didn’t have the same resources as children today have. It’s a whole different world now, compared to what it used to be when I was my son’s age.

I didn’t grow up with computers and I actually didn’t get to see one or work on one until I was maybe 12-13 years old. Now kids are practically born with computers/electronic devices in their hands. If I were to ask my child what a floppy disc was or what a record was, he’d just look at me strange.

I remember being able to play outside alone and running around the neighborhood with the neighbor kids. We’d all run in and out of each other’s houses without telling our parents where we even were. We’d go out early and come back late. Now, we need to know where our children are at all times and they can’t be alone or running around on the streets or in and out of people’s houses.

I let my son use his tablet and his DS, or whatever else he may want to use, but I set limits. I like for him to play with his creative thinking toys, or to play outside when it’s nice out. We like to break away from all the electronic devices as much as possible as I don’t think it’s especially healthy for kids to live on them. I think it’s healthy for kids to use their imagination, be creative, and have fun on their own. My son loves to play outside, play with his cars and trucks, do puzzles and word games, and he loves to draw.

It’s easy to get away from the time limits of the devices and to just let children play for hours on end on them, but how do we get back to a balanced usage? How do we balance the needs of school usage and fun on these devices, while at the same time limiting them? How do we get our children to see that family time is way more fun and meaningful than hours spent on a device?

There are quite a few excuses that parents tend to use as reasons to not enforce limits (I know a few who do this). The book mentions a few common exscuses:

“Life is busy; I don’t have time to enforce screen-time rules.”
“I couldn’t get my spouse to back up what I was doing.”
“My kids threw a fit when I tried to make the change.”
“It’s so hard to be consistent.”

Dr. Chapman breaks down ways to keep your child entertained without using electronics, even for those children that are under two years old.

Also in the book, Dr. Chapman goes on to say that, “It is our job as a parent to teach our children the difference between appropriate and inappropriate content. Do not leave the task to a teacher, pastor, or counselor. IN the same way you would not allow your child to eat candy bars for dinner each night, you cannot allow your child to consume screen-time junk food. You are the gatekeeper of your child’s mental diet.”

Here is the list of chapters in this book:

1. Screen Time: Too Much, Too Soon?
2. The A+ Method for Relational Kids
3. The A+ Skill of Affection
4. The A+ Skill of Appreciation
5. The A+ Skill of Anger Management
6. The A+ Skill of Apology
7. The A+ Skill of Attention
8. Screen Time and Shyness
9. Screen Time and the Brain
10. Screen Time and the Love Languages
11. Screen Time and Security
12. Screen Time and Parental Authority
13. Screen Time and the Single Parent
14. Screen Time and You

This book has so much more information, so much more than I can discuss here in this blog. If you would like to read this book for yourself, you can enter to win the book for yourself in my blog’s GIVEAWAY or you can purchase it for yourself on Amazon.com.

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